
Class. 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



''Where Rolls the Oregon.'' 



" A silvery current flows 
With uncontrolled meanderings ; 
Nor have these eyes by greener hil 
Been soothed, in all my wandering- 




THE THREE TETONS. 

NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE COLUMBIA. 

j^URING a recent visit to tlie Atlantic sea- 
board the writer iiad a very pleasant inter- 
view with one of the greatest travelers and 
most noted political economists of our day, the 
principal topic being the destiny of the region west 
of the Mississippi. Among other things, I asked 
the savant what natural division of North Amer- 
ica he considered the richest in those important 
elements which go to make up great common- 
wealths. 

"The land '"Where Rolls the Oreg'^n,'" he quickly 
replied, and then deliberately added, " I have for 
years marveled that regions to the south of it, 
wliose resources are not to be compared for a mo- 



ment wl%'tlTO«e, It posse ss£»(»>*.'^ 
have so easily aecmk^' 't\i&:r^ ' 
preponderance of attention. 
Why, sir, our Creator so en 
dowed that wonderful north- 
\\^^t Ui.it iliildien now bom will there see devel- 
oped an iiidii'itiidl world like our own New Eng 
land a coal and non empire not Inferior to Penn- 
s\l\ania a scoie of wheatfields like Illinois, half a 
(io/en liuittul Del.iwares, and a precious metal 
kingdom whose like the earth has never known!" 

"why it is." 
It is really not so wonderful, as the learned gen- 
tleman seemed to think, that even such a coun- 
try has remained undeveloped until these closing 
years of the nineteenth century. The south and 
southwest had two hundred years the start in 
practical exploration, a vast advantage In accessi- 
bility, as the lines of commerce have hitherto been 
drawn, and an incalculable precession on account 
of early settlement of ownership. The Columbia, 
first named the "Oregon," was only discovered by 
Capt. Gray in 1792, and my noble old grandfather, 
yet living, remeiiibers well when Napoleon Bona- 
parte, who always did business on a basis of hard 
cash, sold us all the region it drains, with an ad- 
ditional area large enough to have covered his loved 
empire, for .?15,000,000. After buying it for a song 



Copyright 1882, by Robert E. Strahorn. 



" Where Rolls the Orezony 



< 



(which transaction has somehow stamped the re- i 
glon among other nations as of little account) from 
an emperor who was generally considered able to 
deliver his goods, we spent nearly half a century in 
getting a clear title, and permitted all sorts of in- 
dignities to be heaped upon Its colonists by savage 
and civilized foes. It is only thirty-five years since 
the whole of this north-western section of the 
country was formally cfded by Great Britain to the 
United States. As late as 1825, a prominent mem- 
ber of the United States Senate, in his speech 
opposing the erection of one solitary fort in the 
vast Columbia river country, said: "Oregon can 
never become one of the United States. It can 
never be of any essential benefit to the Union ; 
therefore it is Inexpedient to adopt any measure 
for its occupation and settlement. Suppose it ever 
should have a member of Congress and he should 
travel thirty miles a day, allowing for Sundays, 350 
days of the year would be required to come to the 
Capital and return. A young, able-bodied senator 
might travel from Oregon to the Capital and back 
once a year, but he could do nothing else. He 
might come more expeditiously through Behring's 
Strait, round the northern coast of the conti- 
nent to Baffin's Bay, thence to the Atlantic and so 
on to Washington. Of course this passage has 
not yet been discovered, but it will be as soon as 
Oregon bewtnes a State.'" 

He lived to see four great commonwealths carved 
from Oregon, each of which can yet be subdivided 
into six larger and naturally richer states than 
that which sent him to the Senate ; and the Ore- 
gon Congressman of 1883 will be able to ride from 
Portland to our National Capital in a Palace car In 
six days. 

AN OUTLINE. 

The two great streams which form the Columbia 
are known as Clarke's Fork, on the north, and 
Lewis' Fork, or Snake, on the south. These rivers 
and their tributaries permeate the vast, unique, 
and valuable region lying between the Rocky 
Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, bounded on the 
south by the forty-first parallel and on the north by 
the fifty-third, the area positively embraced in this 
drainage being nearly 400,000 square miles. All 
of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and portions of 
Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada belong to 
A^ this empire of the northwest. This country with 
Its present sprinkling of 285.000 Inhabitants is 
-•* larger than Maine. New Hampshire, Vermont, 
^^ * Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
York. New Jersey. Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, where nearly 25,000,000 
of people reside. 

As a great geologist and geograplier once wrote : 
"The Atlantic coast, with Its crowded population. 
Its refined civilization, its great cities, its seats of 
learning and stupenduous industrial operations, 
forms only a fringe on the eastern border of this 
vast domain." 

ONE GREAT RIVER, 

The Columbia ranks with the greatest rivers of 
the world. From its dual birth among the most 
magnificent scenes of earth, In the heart of Yel- 



%'^ 



lowstone National Park, and in the richest section 
of that empire of Western empires. Montana, 
down through its two thou.sand five hundred miles 
of Irresistible sweep to our Western sea. it Is an 
avenue of wealth and wonders. For 200 miles from 
the Pacific inland it averages about two miles In 
breadth, reaching over six miles near its mouth. 
Engineers estimate that it carries off a volume of 
water but little If any less than the Mississippi. 
Its immense drainage may be Imagined from the 
fact that during the melting of the snows In the 
northwestern mountain ranges its daily Increase 
for days at a time has been equal to the entire 
volume of the Hudson. It is the only river in our 
great republic which will receive deep sea-going 
vessels 120 miles into the interior or a river steamer 
1,000 miles Inland among the Cascade, Blue, 
Bitter Root and Rocky Mountains. These navigable 
waters reach 250 miles into a rich region of British 
America. 

LEWIS FORK OR SNAKE. 
The extreme Eastern source of the Columbia is 
Lewis Fork, or Snake River, which rises among 
the most marvelous scenes of Yellowstone Park, 
In longitude 111° within a few feet of the crystal 
founts from which springs that great tributar- of 
the mighty Mississippi, the Yellowstone, and wirh- 
In sight of the headwaters of that grand inlet of 
the Gulf of California— the Rio Colorado.* Here, 
at Its romantic start, the Snake Is also only a day's 
ride from its twin torrent of the North (Clarke's 
Fork), but soon sweeps southward five hundred 
miles as if to gather in the widest and richest field. 
Again, flowing majestically northward to mark the 
boundary between Idaho and Oregon it unites, 
when within 400 miles of the Pacific, with the 
Clarke Fork system to form the true Columbia. It 
will lead the reader toward a true appreciation of 
the wondrous volume of the Snake when he is in- 
formed that somidlngs of the deep blue stream 
In Eastern Idaho, near the crossing of the Utah & 
Northern branch of the Union Pacific Railway, 
failed to discover bottom at txm hundred and forty 
feet. The Snake's greatest feeder from the south, 
Owyhee River, rises In the silver State of Nevada 
at longitude 41°, 800 miles south of a beautiful 
lakelet in British Columbia, from which Canoe 
River, the most northerly tributary of the Colum- 
bia, meanders southward to the common reservoir. 
The Salmon, Clearwater, Boise, Payette, Welser 
and Wood rivers, named In the order of their size, 
flow Into the Snake from the north. The two first 
named are as large as the Delaware at Easton. 
The Snake Is navigable for 300 miles above Its 
junction with Clarke's Fork and for 200 miles In 
the heart of Idaho. 1.000 miles from the sea, as 
well as for shorter stretches in other localities. 
The Clearwater also affords a considerable stretch 
of navigable waters. 

An Interesting bit of history Illustrating the vas't 
extent of Inland navigation made possible by the 
Columbia and Its tributaries is that of the steamer 
Shoshone. It was built ni 1866. on Snake River, 
at a point 90 miles from Boise City, Idaho, and for 
a number of years ran up the Snake to within 125- 



Where Roils the Ores^on!' 



miles of Salt I ake. almost under the shadow of 
the Wasatch. The venture at that early day 
proved unprofitable, and In spite of cascades, reefs 
and rapids in the Blue and Cascade Mountains, 
the staunch little craft was run safely down to the 
sea, a distance by river of 1,000 miles, 

CLARKE'S FORK. 

The eastern source of Clarke's Fork is Deer 
Lodge River, rising in Western Montana within a 
few steps of springs which feed the Missouri. 
Here, for the purpose of washing gold in the rich 
field found at this (Deer Lodge) pass of the Rocky 
Mountains, parties have dug a ditch only eighteen 
feet deep at the apex of the pass through which 
the waters of the Missouri have been turned into 
the waters of the Columbia— the waters of the 
Gulf of Mexico into the Pacific ocean— an opera- 
tion sometimes called highway robbery. There 
■re those bold enough to predict that the day may 
ome when engineering skill shall give water 
transportation by way of these remarkable stieams 
6000 miles through the heart of the four great 
mountain ranges of our continent, uniting the 
...tlantic and Pacific oceans. At present their 
;'?vigHble waters are only 450 miles apart. 
% • a thousand miles Clarke's Fork sweeps 
:i lutely to the northwest, crossing far into the 
I Ji itish Possessions before making its final dash 
outhward to its union with Lewis Fork or the 
;T,,ike. Joined 100 miles from its source by the 
^lackfoot— a stream as large as the Alleghany at 



Salamanca— the current takes the name of Hell- 
gate; soon swelled by the beautiful Bitter Root, it 
Is called the Missoula; near the western Montana 
boundary, after absorbing that magnificent torrent, 
the Flathead, and the more beautiful Pend d' 
Oreille, it for a time speeds on under the musical 
title last given, and when fairly across the British 
line it joins a vast flood from the distant north it 
is generally called the Columbia, although many 
reserve that more dignified name until it has 
finally mingled its waters with Lewis Fork or the 
Snake. In that far northern region it absorbs the 
Kootenai, a stream as large as the Mississippi 
above St. Paul, and in Eastern Washington the 
Spokan, which discharges a greater volume than 
the Ohio at Cincinnati, the Methow, Chelan, 
Wenachee, Yakima and other rivers, any one of 
which would compare favorably in size with the 
prominent streams of New England. As already 
noted, its extreme northern tributary. Canoe River, 
rises in latitude 53°. Feeders of the Columbia 
in that vichiity rise within a stone's throw of the 
Saskatchewan, whose waters finally reach Hudson 
Bay, 1,000 miles northeast, and the Athabasca, 
which after some 2,000 miles of northward wind- 
ings enters the Arctic ocean as Mackenzie River. 

Thus this father of western waters permeates a 
region so vast in extent aiid so singular in confor- 
mation that it alorie, of all the rivers of our conti- 
tirmnt. joins hamls with the greatest wafer courses 
entering the Atlantic. Pacific a^id Arctic oceans and 
the Qulfs of Mexico and California. 



"Time's Noblest Empire is the Last." 



SjHjKT is a fruitful and a boundless theme. It was 
^Iw ^ master hand that marked the course of 
eji^ this mighty river, but that master hand was 
most lavish in its endowment of the region itself. 
In exhaustlessness and variety of resources no 
other coimtry on the globe equals this of ours in 
the New Northwest. There is an atmosphere to 
coax to the fullest perfection all the various pro- 
ductions of the north temperate zone, to charm by 
Its beauty and heal by its purity ; here are valleys 
more extensive and fertile than the famed Danube 
or Nile ; more bountiful deposits of gold and sil- 
ver, iron and coal, copper and lead, than are found 
within equal limits in the world beside ; Its mon- 
archs of the forest, its stupendous vegetable pro- 
ductions challenge the universe. In grand natu- 
ral curiosities and wonders ail other countries com- 
bined fall far below it. A few 

PROMINENT CHARACTERISTICS 

of the region aside from the water-courses already 
ontllned, are the moutaln ranges, the valleys and 
the plains. It is traversed north and south by the 
four or five greatest ranges of our country. First 
on the east the Rockies and Bitter Root, next the 
Blue, then the Cascade, and lastly the Coast range. 
In addition to these are more isolated mountain 



ranges whose trend is not generally so regular or 
well-defined, such as the Salmon River, Sawtooth, 
Coeur d'Alene, Owyhee, Umpquah, etc. These 
mountains vary In altitude from 5.000 to 14,000 feet. 
It is oil these and their numerous spurs that the 
forests are mainly found, and among them are 
grouped the many belts of precious and base 
metals. These mountains also give forth the myr- 
iad glittering springs and treasure up the vast 
reserves of snow and ice, which in summer send an 
unfailing and regular supply of water through 
thousands of rivulets, creeks and rivers to re- 
fresh and fertilize the lowlands. 

Then are the valle.vs— the country's precious 
gems— one hundred or more of them ranging in 
length from 25 to 200 miles, and in breadth from 
two to fifty miles, and thousands of others,, 
smaller, but just as fertile and generally more 
attractive. Enchanting little vales, coy parks 
hidden among the hills, these are indeed innum- 
erable. Their altitude varies from a little above 
sea level to 5.000 feet. They are generally consid- 
erably depressed below the surrounding formation 
and are often well sheltered by overlooking moun- 
tain ranges. 

The plains, more elevated than the valle.vs. 
stretch over a vast extent of the country east of 



" Where Rolls the Oregon y 



the Cascade Mountains. The Snake River Plains. 
In the southern section ol the region m question, 
are some 300 miles in length by 250 In breadth, 
possessing an elevation of from 2,500 to 4,500 feet 
above the sea, and in the main being fit only for 
grazing. The Great Plains of the Columbia, In 
the northern portion of the region, nearly equal 
the Snake River plains in extent, possess a much 
lower average elevation and afford the largest un- 
broken body of agricultural lands west of our 
prairie states. Camas Prairie, In central Idaho, 
is twenty by eighty miles in extent. Horse Plains. 
In western Montana, Is nearly as large. Teton 
Basin, in western Wyoming, 800 square miles in 
extent, and other similar plateaux, possess wide 
areas of productive farm lands at an elevation 
above the sea of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet. 
OF ITS EXTENT AGAIN. 
In this vast drainage of 400,000 square miles are 
50,000,000 acres of wheat lands, capable of produc- 
ing the enormous amount of 1,000,000,000 bushels 
of wheat annually for an equivalent) placing the 
yield at a low average for that region of twenty 
bushels per acre. This is about twenty times the 
production of the great state of Illinois in 1881. 
The region also possesses some 60,000,000 acres of 
grazing lands, a larger territoi'y than New York, 
New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire 
combined. The possibilities of such a pasture 
field are almost beyond calculation. The forests 
of this vast domain are greater and more valuable 



than those in all of our States north of the Ohio 
River and east of the Mississippi. The mineral 
field underlies tens of thousands of square miles 
of the forest area. Gather together all there Is of 
England, Scotland, Belgium, Holland. France, 
Denmark and Switzerland, where over 8.5,000,000 
of people dwell, and it tioes not equal the water- 
shed of the Columbia and its tributaries. And all 
those countries have their mountains and timber 
and their barren and waste lands and are growing, 
increasing, and developing yet, and will continue 
for ages to come, notwithstanding heavy annual 
depletion from emigration. 

To impress the reader still more forcibly with 
the size and destiny of our land " where rolls the 
Oregon," let me quote a recent comparison made 
by Hon. M. C. George, a Congressman from that 
country : " Put your finger on a map nortliwest of 
Chicago, pass it thence easterly to Include Detroit 
and Toledo and Cleveland and Buffalo and Mon- 
treal and Boston ; thence follow down the coast 
and Include New York and Biooklyn and Phila- 
delphia and Baltimore ; thence westerly and in- 
clude Cincinnati and Saint Louis ; and then to 
Chicago again, and although you have outlined a 
scope of country which Includes all the great cities 
of America save New Orleans and San Francisco» 
and an area where over 23.000,000 of people reside, 
yet you have traced a country only about seven- 
eighths the size of the great Northwest of the 
Pacific." 



As to Climate. 

" How canst thou walk in these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies ? 
How canst thou breathe in this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains ?" 



aAID a prominent writer on western affairs re- 
cently : " The Montana mountaineers will 
have to fight cold winters and deep snows, 
but that kind of a battle is better for a man's 
energies than to search a shady place and smoke 
cigarettes. It Is a better climate to develop ener- 
gies and make strong patriotism. It is fitted for 
young blood. It is such a climate as never over- 
hangs the homes of any except brave, ejirnest 
men, and earnest and true women." Said Hon. 
Samuel Bowles in writing of the Puget Sound 
country : "Up here above the latitude of Que- 
bec and Montreal we basked in the smile of roses 
that are even denied to us In New England. 
Here, within this circle of the softening sea, reigns 
a year that knows no zero cold, and rarely freez- 
ing water or snow ; that winters fuchsias and 
the most delicate roses, English ivies and other 
tender plants, and summers them with rioting 
luxuriance ; that grows the apple, the pear and 
the small fruits to perfection," and a noted writer 
on climatology adds, " the climate of eastern Ore- 
gon or Washington is like that of France and that 
of the western portion of these commonwealths 



like one produced by adding the mildness of Vir- 
ginia to the moisture of England." 

The truth is, this great kingdom of variable alti- 
tudes and of " most magnificent distances " af- 
fords every imaginable variety of climate except 
the troplciil. Therefore, if as the great Montes- 
quieu says, "the empire of climate is the most 
powerful of all empires," blessed is our region of 
the new northwest, for it possesses that desidera- 
tim. The temperatures of Florida and Maine, of 
Pennsylvania and California, have their prototypes 
here. The persimmon constitution will find its 
Ideal in the peach and sweet potato belts of the 
low-lands and the man of sterner stuff, who wants 
a good fiosty bracing atmosphere can revel in It in 
mid-sunnner a mile away. 

Roses in Portland in Dwember, pansifs in Vinjinia 
City, Mrmtatm, in Janimry, peach blossoms at Leiois- 
ton, Idaho, in Fcbnunij, srmn^hiulfK in six/ht <jf either 
in August. Side by side, blending into one matchless 
picture are summer and winter, Italy and Switzer- 
land, " the dreamy Orient and the restless Occi- 
dent." 



''Where Rolls the Oregon." 



THE OCEAN CURRENTS- 
It Is well known that a wide difference in tem- 
perature exists in corresponding latitudes on the 
Atlantic coasts of the United States and of Europe, 
and the cause has been well established. While 
along the eastern shores of our own country 
courses the Arctic ocean current, bearing down 
from the Northern sea its icy waters, the western 
countries of Europe are warmed by the mighty 
Gulf stream, which bears to their shores the ther- 
mal waters of the Tropical ocean. 

The Columbia River region is in the same lati- 
tude as sunny France, Switzerland and portions of 
Italy, Spain and Portugal. It is subject to oceanic 
influences very similar to those of the countries 
mentioned, and necessarily has a somewhat simi- 
lar climate. All this region is near enough to the 
Pacific ocean to be very markedly affected by its 
currents. By reference to any map whereon these 
ocean currents are shown, it will be seen that the 
great Japan current (Kuro Sivo)— that mighty 
stream of warm water— bears directly against the 
western shores of America. The temperature of 
the winds blowing over it is of course affected by 
its heat, and they carry their modifying influences 
inland many hundred miles, even exerting their 
genial influences upon the climate of Montana. 

Cast your eyes over a climatic map exhibiting the 
extreme northern line of wheat production, for in- 
stance, and you will find that while on the eastern 
shore it touches near the mouth of the Saint Law- 
rence, at latitude 50°, it runs in the northwest 500 
miles farther north and beyond the most northerly 
point in British America reached by the Columbia 
river. Over $1,000,000 have been invested in herds 
of cattle and horses during the past eighteen 
months, which herds are to sustain themselves 
without winter feeding on the great bunch grass 
plains of British America north of Montana, the 
experiment having been often successfully made 
by freighters who have turned out their oxen in 
that country poor from over-work in the fall and 
after leaving them to shift for themselves through 
the winter have gathered them up in good trim for 
work in the spring. 

THE RECORD BY DISTRICTS. 

The valleys of Montana, the coldest portion of 
this region, have an average annual temperature 
of 48°, about four degrees warmer than Wisconsin, 
three degrees warmer than Michigan, and one de- 
gree warmer than Massachusetts and New York. 
Montana averages 254 days of perfect sunshine per 
year, and tu>o hundred and nbiety-one fair diiys as 
against 191 fair days at Boston, and 170 at Buffalo 
and Chictigo. Montana's fall of rain and melted 
snow is about 23 inches annually; Ave to seven 
inches less than that in Miimesota. 

The average or mean annual temperature at 
Lewiston, in Northern Idaho, is 56° ; a milder 
showing by five degrees than is made by Ohio, 
milder by ten degrees than Iowa, and milder by 
twelve degrees than Maine and New Hampshire. 
Boise City, in western central Idaho, with a much 
greater altitude than Lewiston, has an average 
temperature of 51°, the same as Ohio, and four 



degrees warmer than Connecticut. The rain and 
snowfall at Lewiston is about 24 inches; at Boise, 
about half that amount. Idaho is noted for its 
bright, sunny days and dry, pure atmosphere. 

The average spring temperature of western Or- 
egon is 52°; summer, 67°; autumn, 53°; winter, 39°, 
or. 52.75° for the whole year. The thermometer 
seldom rises above 90° in the hottest days of the 
summer, and rarely falls below 20° in the winter; 
so that the most active out-door labor may be per- 
formed at all times of the year, and at all hours of 
the day. Considering the thermometer's limited 
range during the four seasons, and the other con- 
ditions peculiar to the locality, a year would more 
properly be divided into two seasons— the wet and 
the dry; the former lasting from the middle of 
November until May, during which period the 
rainfall is copious and regular, insuring certain 
crops and good pasturage. In the Williamette 
valley the animal rainfall is 44 inches— about the 
same as at Davenport, Memphis, and Philadel- 
phia, while in all other valleys it is sufficient to 
prevent any drouth. The rain never comes in 
torrents, but gently and without atmospheric dis- 
turbance; tliunder storms are rare. 

The climate of Middle and Eastern Oregon 
differs in this from that of the western part of the 
State, that there is much less rainfall in the winter, 
and conseciuently more coldness in the latter, and 
more dryness in the summer. The rainfall, how- 
ever, throughout the greater part of Eastern Ore- 
gon, is sufficient to insure large and remunerative 
crops. The range of the thermometer is rarely 
above the summer temperature of Western Oregon, 
sometimes reaching 100°, but only at rare intervals. 
Ordinarily the thermometer indicates 90° as about 
the highest summer temperature, and 10° as the 
lowest for winter. 

The climate of the different divisions of Wash- 
ington Territory (eastern and western) is nearly 
a duplicate of that in corresponding sections of 
Oregon. The range of mercury is a trifle lower, 
and in the Puget Sound section the rainfall is a 
little greater; but these differences are hardly per- 
ceptible. 

If these facts prove anything they prove that the 
habitable portions of this whole northwestern 
region are singularly adapted, by virtue of their 
climates, to comfortable out-door work at all 
prominent Industries the year round; that with 
soils of ordinary fertility the various cereals, fruits 
and vegetables can be gi-own over a vast extent of 
now unoccupied territory; that millions of cattle, 
horses and sheep can thrive without shelter or 
prepared food on almost unlimited natural pastur- 
age; and, best of all, that this Is one grand sani- 
tarium— undisputably the 

HEALTHIEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD! 
According to the official report of the Surgeon- 
General of the United States army, the percentage 
of deaths from disease to each 1,000 soldiers in the 
different military districts of the Union are as fol- 
lows, the result having been the average of four 
years: Atlantic coast, out of each 1,000, the per- 
centJige of deaths was 17.83; Arizona. 12.11; Penn- 



6 



Where Rolls the Oreo;ony 



sylvHiiia and Michigan. 6.05; the northwest, In- ' 
eluding Montana, Idaho. Oregon and Washington, 
3. '^5. The Gulf states make a worse showing than 
the Atlantic states, and the northwest by far the 
best of all. The mortality statistics taken in con- 
nection with our national census, show a smaller 
death rate for Idaho and Oregon than for any 
other commonwealth in the Union. Idaho standing 
first with a percentage of 0.33, Oregon following 
with 0.69. and prominent eastern states following 
in this wise: Ohio, 1.11; Malne^ 1.23; Illinois, 1.33; 
New York. 1.58; Missouri, 1.63; Massachusetts, 1.77; 
Louisiana, 2.00. Children bon here are strong 
and sturd.v, and the diseases Ir.cJc'^nt to childhood 
rarely assume a malignant fcrm. Endemic and 
epidemic dlsea.ses are almost unknown. There 
are no low, swampy lands east of the Cascade 
Mountains; malaria cannot exist, and fever and 
ague have no foothold. Consumption, that "dread 
disease which medicine never cured, riches never 
warded off, nor poverty could boast exemption 
from," which is the >courge and terror of New 
England and the east generally, is either here 
cured or modifled so as to prolong life for many 
years. 

Hurricanes, floods or other storms destructive of 
life and property are almost unknown in the 



history of this region. The growing season along 
the coast is accompanied with bounteous showers, 
whose absence in the interior is not felt because 
of the beneficent distribution of lands and streams 
suitable for irrigation. During harvest time there 
is rarely any rainfall; in fact such a catastrophe 
as loss of crops from drouth or flood would be 
considered phenomenal. 

What a contrast to the oft repeated experience 
of the Mississippi and other eastern valleys ! While 
I write, a flood covers the finest cotton, sugar and 
rice lands of the south. The overflowed area is 
estimated at 33.000,000 acres— nearly equal to the 
entire surface of the great state of Iowa. The 
amount realized there last year from the cotton 
crop alone was §20,000,000. It will require $10,- 
000,000 to relieve the Immediate necessities of 
the 500,000 inhabitants utterly destitute ; many 
times that amount to make good their losses, and 
ages to blot from the memory of the rescued the 
awful scenes attendant upon the loss of human 
life. If the 400.000 sufferers, whom it is said must 
seek other lands and employment, could at a 
bound transfer their industry to this grand north- 
west they could, without fear of the elements, 
carve out a magnificent destiny, such as genera- 
tions will not realize in that portion of the south. 



Where the Harvest Shall Be. 



Khe drainage of the Columbia will soon be 
jJS recognized as the gianary of our Republic. 
In it are 50,000,000 acres of the finest wheat 
lands in the world. Figures ai'e cold and dead 
when drawn upon to convey an idea of this stu- 
pendous truth. This area is nearly equal to the 
surface of England and Ireland combined, or 
Pennsylvania and Ohio. It would produce of 
wheat or Its equivalent in one season 1,000,000,(1)0 
bushels at the low average of 20 bushels per acre> 
or if reckoned at the usual average of 30 bushels 
per acre, the production would figure up 

1,500,000,000 BUSHELS! 
more than three times the present total product 
of the United States. 

The present annual consumption of wheat by 
the United States is 300,000,000 bushels ; of France 
about the same and the remaining 900,000,000 
bushels of the crop which the Columbia River re- 
gion could produce would feed the entire present 
population of the German Empire and that of the 
United Kingdom of Great Britain. The ambitious 
statistician who desires to ijursue this calculation 
further In tills direction will find that it would re- 
(luire some new science In railroading to move one 
such crop on a single track before the next was 
harvested. 

While several generations may pass away before 
these seemingly incredible results will be reached, 
it may be noted here that the region in question 
is only now confined to the comparatively insignifi- 
cant production of 20,000,000 bushels per annum 



because of the lack of means to convey its pro- 
duct to market. In eastern Oregon and Wash- 
ington and northern Idaho alone, some 40,000 
tons of a single wheat crop (more than all the 
tonnage of the powerful young State of Colorado, 
when the first railroad reached its borders) has 
laid along the Columbia and Snake Rivers nearly a 
year for lack of boats to move it. 

RAILWAYS AND MARKETS. 

This want is happily being supplied by the 
Union Pacific Railway, one of whose arms (The 
Utah & Northern Branch) now stretches over 400 
miles northward from the main line into the 
heart of the Clarke's Fork region, in Montana; 
while another (the Oregon Short Line) is being rap- 
idly extended across southern Idaho, through the 
Lewis Fork or Snake River country, and Is in 1883 
to tai) the still greater grain region of the Colum- 
bia, in eastern Oregon and Washington. 

Wheat has been carried from California to St. 
Louis by rail and sold at a profit. The route Is 
2,600 miles long and the question naturally arises 
why will ..ot an immense grain shipment from 
the Columbia River country to Chicago or St. Louis 
ensue upon the completion of the Union Pacific 
Oregon Short Line, by which the distances are as 
follows : Portland to Chicago, 2,290 miles ; Walla 
Walla to Chicago, 2,118, and Boise City to Chicago, 
1.809 miles. From these points to St. Louis the 
distance Is in each case a trifle less than to Chi- 
cago. It costs less to raise wheat and otlier pro- 
ducts in Oregon or Washington than it does in 



" When' Rolls the Oregon^ 



7 



California, and the northwestern farmer has a ' 
certainty of an annual crop, while the California 
farmer is happy if he can raise three crops in Ave 
years One prominent Walla Walla farmer tells 
me he can make a good living raising wheat at 
50 cents per bushel ; can lay up money at 60 cents 
and grow rich at 85 cents per bushel. 

A FARM FOR EVERYBODY. 

Divided up into farms of Stiy 200 acres each.our 50,- 
000,000 acres of rich soil in the land " where rolls 
the Oregon," would give 250,000 farms and afford 
abundant employment for an exclusively ;igricul- 
tural population of at least 2,000,000. But if tilled, 
asitwlllbesomeday, by such a population as in- 
habits the Eastern States, it will give nearly 2,000,- 
000 farms and afford employment for eight or ten 
million people ; or if tilled as lands are in France, 
where 5,000,000 of the total 5,500,000 dllTerent culti- 
vated properties average less than six acres each 
this empire of the Northwest would sustain a 
farming community equal to nearly half the pres- 
ent population of our Union. 

It is an old saying that he who pays rent, lends 
money to the poor house. I taice it that every 
American has a higher ambition than renting his 
home or worliing for wages all through life. That 
ambition can never be gratitled sooner anywhere 
through industrious and economical liabits than 
on these 50.000,000 acres of our common footstool 
in the Northwest. 

IN MONTANA. 

There is still an area uncultivated in Montana 
equal to nearly 40,000 flrst-class farms of 160 acres 
each. The black sandy loam produces a crop of 
almost any of the cereals or vegetables about 
seventy-flve per cent greater than the best bottom 
lands east of the Mis.souri. In a few Instances crops 
of wheat have been raised on the hill lands with- 
out irrigation and having averaged from twenty- 
flve to forty bushels to the acre are calling atten- 
tion to these hitherto despised highlands. The 
30,000 acres now In wheat average twenty-flve bush- 
els to the acre, but exijerience has demonstrated 
this standard can easily be raised. Occasionally 
there are yields that seem marvelous ; samples 
of wheat which went 100 bushels to the acre, bar- 
ley 105, potatoes, •613, have been exhibited at 
Helena, with the sworn statements of parties who 
measured the ground and crops. 

Wheat can be raised in Montana at fifty cents a 
bushel and brings a net profit of S14 per acre. Oats 
yield a greater profit. Corn when raised brings 
about as much per acre as wheat, but it does not 
flourish on account of the cool nights. Potatoes 
will clear the producer from $75 to S90 per acre. 
In a fair year one man can clear from 160 acres 
of wheat alone $2,000. 

The only trouble Montana farmers have had 
were the grasshoppers, though their devastations 
have never been so marked as in the prairie states 
and farmers agree that on account of the usual 
large yields and uniformly good prices they can 
afford to lose one crop out of three, which is far 
more than they have ever been called upon to do. 



In the Yellowstone, Upper Missouri, Gallatin. 
Madison, Jefferson, Deer Lodge, Bitter Root, Ju- 
dith, Musselshell and many other valleys of Mon- 
tana lands are open to homestead and pre-emption 
or purchase from the Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company, at from $2.50 to $5 per acre— such lands 
as will, one year with another, yield the judicious 
owner larger returns than average lands in Eastern 
states now selling for $50 to $100 per acfe. These 
valleys are now all easily accessible by the Union 
Pacific Railway. Irrigation is necessary in Montana 
and the southern half of Idaho, but that fact is an 
advantage, as the crops are not subject to tlie 
caprice of the weather, and the water brings with 
it enough mineral and organic matter to keep the 
land fertile, even though the same crop is raised 
upon it year after year, while the cost of irrigation 
is only about fifty cents an acre each season, 
hardly a fraction of the cost of artificial fertilizers 
considered essential at the east. One man can 
irrigate from sixty to eighty acres of grain. 
FARMING IN IDAHO. 
The newcomer who enters Idaho from the east 
or south, crosses scores of miles of territory appar- 
ently so barren and so utterly forbidding In every 
way that he must be possessed of a stout heart to 
be able to reconcile himself to rural life in " The 
Gem of the Mountains." It is indeed hard to " 
imagine a more dreary picture in nature than he 
will here encounter In the thousan-ls of square 
miles of sombre sage brush plain, unless imagina- 
tion rests for a moment upon tiie parched deserts 
of Arizona, or the snow and ice brakes of some 
portion of the British possessions, to which dire 
extremes whole colonies of lucldess immigrants 
have in recent years been carried. 

But here in Idaho he will encounter what Is 
impossible in the other regions named, a practical 
Eden at various stages of his journey. He will find 
here and there in the midst of these plains luxuri- 
ant crops, emerald or golden, trees blossom and 
perfume-laden, or bending to earth with their 
lavish fruitage. Boise City, fairly embowered in 
flower gardens and fruit orchards, and thousands 
of acres of land in different parts of the Territory, 
from which are annually harvested a wider range 
of productions than any commonwealth in Amer- 
ica, excepting California, can boast, were a few 
years ago just such dreary looking wastes as are 
many locations now to whch I have already 
referred as the most fertile lu )ur great lana. 

The Lewis Fork or Snake alone has more arable 
land along it in Idaho, (3,000,000 fertile acres) than 
is possessed by all Egypt, including the famed 
valley of the Nile. The latter valley, by the way, 
has been cultivated some 3,000 sears by the aid of 
irrigation, and is still sufficiently fertile to be 
capable of furnishing millions with the staff of 
life. For untold ages it supported a population of 
nearly 8,000,000 souls. In the Teton Basin, near 
the head waters of the Snake, along the eastern 
Idaho boundary, are 800 squ;tre miles, or 500,000 
virgin acres, whereon a colony of several hundred 
could find excellent homes. Also in easte rn Idaho, 
now penetrated by two great railway lines (the 



" Where Rolls the Oregon:' 



Dtah & Northern and Oregon Short Line.) Is the 
upper valley of the Snake, with Its tributaries the 
Blackfoot, Portneuf, Salt River, and other valleys, 
where in one almost unbroken body are at least 
half a million acres of uncultivated land. Large 
irrigating canals have been constructed to cover 
these lands, rendering them available for cultiva- 
tion at once. 

Westward 25 miles at American Falls (where the 
Oregon Short Line crosses Snake river) commences 
a body of land as large as some of the New Eng- 
land states, which has been alluded to as follows 
by a prominent engineer of Idaho : " Suppose the 
Government, or, under a more liberal law, a body 
of capitalists were to construct a canal tapping 
Snake River at the American Falls. Between this 
Initial point and the length of one hundred miles, 
there is an area of 1,500,000 acres of good land that 
would be reclaimed, and, as similar land has pro- 
duced from 40 to 50 bushels to the acre, it will be 
fair to estimate the produce of this Snake River 
land at 30 bushels to the acre. This land, then, if 
sown to wheat— and wheat is the least valuable 
crop the farmer can raise— would give a total yield 
of at least 30,000,000 bushels, which, sold at 66.73 
cents, would amount to §20,000,000 annually, and 
in the ratio of crops, perhaps to $30,000,000, and it 
is a fair question to consider whether a canal suffi- 
ciently large to convey water to irrigate this land 
would cost as much as $20,000,000. If the Govern- 
ment, in its wisdom, would construct such a canal 
as this, these, and more millions of acres of land, 
would become centers of rich and extensive farm- 
ing communities, it would be repaid a hundred 
times in the ready sale of its lands, and indirectly 
to the Territory, by an increasing list of taxable 
property." 

About 125 miles northwest of American Falls, 
Ijing just north of the Oregon Short Line, is Camas 
Prairie (named from a small, sweet, and nutritious 
bulbous root much prized for food by the Indians 
who in days gone by resorted there in large num- 
bers.) It is some 80 miles long and 20 wide and 
contains 300,000 acres of lands as fertile as any 
under the sun. Experiments made here during 
the past year resulted in the ripening of superb 
crops of cereals and vegetables without irrigation. 
It is estimated that 500 families will settle on 
Camas Prairie this year. 

Westward some 75 miles in the vicinity of Boise 
City, commences the gardenland of Idaho. It con- 
sists of arable sections of Snake, Boise, Weiser, 
Payette, Owyhee, Malheur and other valleys, aggre 
gating at least 1,000.000 acres (of which not more 
than one-fourth are claimed) of lands which will 
produce all the varieties of cereals and vegetables 
which can be raised north of the cotton-growing line 
In the Atlantic states, and apples, pears, plums, 
peaches, grapes, nectarines, apricots, and many of 
the smaller fruits of the finest Quality. Even 
tobacco and cotton have been grown in the lower 
valleys here. 

Wheat yields an average of 30 bushels per acre; 
oats, 55 bushels ; barley, 45 bushels, and other 
cereals, save corn, in proportion. Very little corn 



Is produced on account of the cool nights in sum- 
mer. Farmers who take special pains to secure 
the best results from given areas, often produce 50 
bushels of wheat per acre, 70 of oats and 60 of 
barley, and I have noted exceptional yields far in 
excess of these figures. There has been no gene- 
ral failure of crops in the Boise valley intheijad 
sei)enteen years. These lands are all along or with- 
in a day's ride of the Oregon Short Line, the early 
completion of which will greatly enhance their 
value. 

The following is an official rexume of agricultural 
productions to the acre, in bushels, of the States 
of the Rocky Mountain region, and of the east, in 
comparison with Idaho : 

Wheat. Rye. Oats. Barley. Potatoes. Corn. 
Idaho. . . .30 25 55 40 250 35 

Nevada ... 12 .31 95 30 

California. . 17 15 .30 23 114 34 

East'n States 13 15 31 23 69 26 

Following Snake River to the northern portion 
of the territory we find over a million acres of land 
open to settlement under the homestead and pre- 
emption laws, all of which has been sui-veyed. 
Not more than three thousand filings have thus far 
been made, so that Uncle Sam has a farm of 160 
acres for 70.000 home-born or adopted sons to give 
away north of the Salmon River in Idaho. The 
new comer who prefers such conditions as sur- 
rounded him in the East will, in Northern Idaho, 
find vast areas of unclaimed territory where the 
rainfall is ample to insure the growth of all crops. 
It is not unusual for immigrants to locate on 
wild land in Idaho valleys adjacent to mining 
regions, put up comfortable houses, good fences, 
etc., and pay for all such improvements with the 
first year's crop of potatoes or other vegetables 
taken from only a small portion of their farms. 
The facts that Idaho farmers were, as a rule, very 
poor when they embarked in business a few years 
ago, and that they are now generally well off and 
have fine buildings and the best implements, with 
often large herds of stock, are proof that this is 
a lucrative pursuit. I have never heard of the 
mortgaging of an Idaho farm. 

Following is a list of the most prominent valleys 
of Idaho, with their arable dimensions estimated 
by the most competent authorities. 

Name and location of valley. ■ ^i^^^ MUes 
South Fork Snake River, East'n Idaho 30 2 to 4 
Salt River Valley, Eastern Idaho .20 1 to 2 
Bear River Valley, Eastern Idaho . . 40 3 to 5 
Snake Valley. North Fork. E. Idaho .60 2 to 10 
Blackfoot Valley, Eastern Idaho ... 20 2 to 5 

Round Valley, Eastern Idaho 30 8 to 12 

Wood River Valley, Central Idaho . . 5o 1 to 2 
Camas Prairie, Central Idaho ... 80 18 to 25 

Boise Valley, Western Idaho 60 2 to 6 

Payette Valley, Western Idaho . ... 75 2 to 15 
Weiser Valley, Western Idaho .... 40 2 to 5 
Lemhi Valley, North-Eastern Idaho .70 3 to 6 
Pah-Simari Valley, N. Eastern Idaho. 25 1 to 5 
Northern Camas Prairie, N. Idaho . . 3U 20 to 25 
Potlach Valley, Northern Idaho ... 25 10 to 15 
Palouse Valley, Northern Idaho ... 20 5 to 10 
St. Joseph Valley, Northern Idaho . . 15 5 to 10 
The valleys mentioned above are not all that 
are suitable for settlement. I could name over a 
score or more in addition, where the opportunities 
are fully as advantageous as in these. Although, 



" Whe'ye Rolls the Oregon!' 



individually, the valleys are small, yet when taken 
collectively, the arable land contained in them 
would form a belt 5,000 miles long, with an average 
width of three miles— a belt that would stretch 
from Boston over our broad continent to San Fran- 
cisco and part way back— an area of 15,000 square 
miles, or nearly 10,000,000 acres— twice the extent 
of the rich state of Massachusetts. 

LANDS IN OREGON AND WASHINGTON. 
But it Is these commonwealths which afford the 
largest area of farming lands, the best conditions 
to warrant the production of heavy crops— without 
a failure for ages— and the climate of all others to 
enable the husbandman to work outdoors at some- 
thing every month of the twelve. Said Senator 
O. P. Morton, after his tour of inspection a few 
years ago, "They will make homes for millions, 
and can almost feed the world." They are nearly 
as large as France, three times as large as old 
England, ten times as large as Switzerland, and 
about fom-teen times the site of Holland. Were 
they settled as Switzerland, they would have about 
24,000,000 of people ; as France, about 33,000.000 ; 
as Holland, about 45,000,000, or as England at least 
75,000,000— about 25,000.00 i more than we now have 
in all of the United States. In their proportion of 
productive to waste lands, they will compare well 
with the average of the foreign countries named. 
In soil or in climatic or other conditions affecting 
the growth of crops, the comparison would be 
vastly in favor of Oregon and Washington. The 
truth is there is little land in that vast region that 
is not good for something, either adapted to wheat 
barley, oats, hay, pasture, fruit, vegetables, timber, 
mining, or something else. There are those who 
claim there Is no state in the Union where there 
Is less waste land in proportion to the total area 
than In Oregon, and as remarked by an eminent 
traveler, "here Nature does not divide her rain and 
sunshine in two great halves, as she metes them 
out in California; here it rains and shines by turns, 
as smiles and tears alternate on those happy faces 
never distorted by immoderate laughter or drawn 
down by persistent grief." In many sections the 
grass is green the year round. The soil is black 
and rich as the mud of Egypt. The farmer can 
seed all the fall until Christmas, or all the spring 
from February to May, thus dispensing with much 
extra labor. Harvest is prolonged indefinitely- 
just as long as the grain will stand. Indeed, I have 
seen such enormous crops cared for by the com- 
paratively few farmers that the singularly brilliant 
and beautiful moonlight nights of that northland 
were n*de to ring with the sound of the reaper or 
mower until the " wee sma' hours." 

Hon. Philip Ritz, an intelligent pioneer farmer 
of Washington Territory, in a letter referring more 
generally to the great sea of rolling hills now cov- 
ered with bunch grass, and known as the Plains of 
the Columbia, in eastern Oregon and Washington, 
says: "I have gone over this great body of wheat 
country in several directions, and have estimated 
It carefully by townships, by sections, and by acres, 
and, having left out a fair proportion for rough 
land suitable only for grazing purposes, and esti- 



mated the wheat yield- at a low average lor that 
country, I find the ultim;ite capacity of these great 
plains foi' the production of wheat to be fully 
100,000,000 bushels per aimum. " 

Said Hon. M. C. George, member of congress 
fi-om Oregon, in a recent speech before that body: 
" Let me give you a single Instance of rapid and 
surprising development, for such has. been the 
order of things, especially in the supposed unpro- 
ductive region of eastern Oregon and Washington. 
Ten years ago a certain tract of 2.300 acres near 
Walla Walla, now owned by Dr. Blalock, would 
scarcely have sold for ten cents per acre. This 
year its average yield of wheat was 35 bushels per 
acre, and on 1,000 acres of it 50.000 bushels were 
raised. Samuel Edwards, on land near by, har- 
vested an average of 711,4 bushels per acre from 
30 acres. But a few years ago the wheat product of 
Oregon was put down by statisticians under the 
head of ' miscellaneous.' In 1880 the census re- 
vealed our state as ahead of twenty-one others, and 
standing seventeenth on the list of states in quan- 
tity and first in quality, and yet it to-day is but in 
its iiLfancy in this industry." 

W. S. Gilnian, near Walla Walla, last season 
harvested 52 bushels of wheat per acre from a field 
of 120 acres, and a neighbor, C. M. Patterson, har- 
vested 47 bushels per acre from 80 acres of "sod- 
land," or raw laud on which wheat was sown for 
the fli'st time and the sod turned over upon It. A 
Mr. Foster owns a field of 60 acres near Walla 
Walla which has produced a grain crop every year 
for sixteen years, and the average yield has never 
been less than 55 bushels per acre. He has never 
used fertilizers of any kind. However, estimating 
on the basis of a fair average yield— 35 bushels per 
acre, about two-thirds of the best yield uoteti above 
—wheat-raising on the Columbia plains at the 
present low prices is a good business. With the 
Oregon Short Line and Northern Pacific completed 
to this region In 1883 a market at better figures 
will change the result materially. The table given 
below explains the profits to be obtained now by 
careful cultivation, fi-om a quartei' section of wheat. 
The table Is based on actual results. 
expenses: 

Fall plowing, i6o acres @, |2 «32o 

Seed wheat, 1 1.< bushels per acre, at 45 cts . . . . io8 

Sowing and Harrowing, at 75 cts 120 

Harvesting, at S2 per acre 320 

Threshingand hauling, $2.50 per acre 400 

Total cost $1,268 

or ^7.92!/^ per acre. 

receipts: 

5,600 bushels of wheat, at 45 cts per bushel . , , fa, 520 
Less cost ;Ji,'268 

A profit of $7.80 per acre— a sum sufficient to 
purchase more than three times the amount of 
land that produced it, at government or railroad 
prices. There are still 60,000 farms of 160 acres 
each in the eastern Oregon and Washington country 
awaiting claimants and cultivation. Of course 
every county In Oregon and Washington has land 
yet held by Uncle Sam and subject to the usual 
homestead and pre-emption laws. There is an 



lO 



" W/iere Rolls the Oresro?i." 



abuudaiice of railroad land in both common- 
wealths now selling at from $2 to $5 per acre. 
Lands helJ by individuals are worth fi'0)n $2.50 to 
.§50 per acre, varying with their location and im- 
provements. 

In western Oregon and Washington valley lands 
preponderate, and here, in western Oregon, is the 
gem, the emerald of the Pacific coast. It is the 
Willlamette valley, of which Hon. Samuel Bowles 
once wrote : " Never beheld I a more fascinating 
theatre for rural homes; never seemed more fitly 
united natural beauty and practical comfort; fer- 
tility of soils and variety of surface and production ; 
never were my bucolic instincts more deply stirred 
than In this first outlook upon the Willlamette 
valley." It is about 150 miles long and 50 wide, 
containing 100,000 Inhabitants — about half the 
present population of Oregon— and if settled as is 
Merrlmac valley, it would have 1,076,000. or as the 
valley of the Delaware, It would have 2,000,000. It 
will produce anything a reasonable farmer would 
ask, and there has been no failure qf crops In It 
since the first settlement of the country some 
forty years ago. There is not any great amount 
of good agricultural land to be secured In this 
valley under the homestead and pre-emption acts, 
but considerable Is yet for sale at from $5 to $10 
per acre for wild lands or $15 to $40 for improved. 
In the following valleys, however, are thousands 
—yes, millions in the aggregate— of fertile acres 
to be had for the takmg. These Oregon and 
Washington valleys have in addition to their cig- 
ricultural resources, some very picturesque names. 
Among them are the following: The Columbia 
Valley, from the mouth of the river 260 miles east, 
forms the boundary of Oregon and Washington, 
and the strip of valley land on both sides 
varies fi-om two miles to thirty in width, 
or an average, perhaps, of ten miles. The Co- 
lumbia, from that point where it turns north, 
runs through Washington Territory three hundred 
miles, and the valley has an average width of 80 
miles. Walla Walla, 30 miles long and 18 miles 
wide; Touchet, 40 miles long and 5 wide; Alpowa, 

14 miles long and 3 wide; Palouse, 100 miles long 
and 25 wide; Yakama, 100 miles long and 20 wide; 
Spokane, 60 miles long and 10 wide; Josephme, 25 
miles long and 4 wide; Klamath, 50 miles long and 

15 wide; John Day, 50 miles long and 10 wide; Wil- 
low Creek, 30 miles long and 8 wide; Birch Creek. 
20 miles long and 6 wide; Umatilla, 30 miles long 
and 35 wide: Pine Creek. 10 miles long and 15 wide; 
Grande Roiide, 20 miles long and 16 wide; Powder 
River, 10 miles long and 5 wide; Jordan River, 15 
miles long and 5 wide; Burnt River, 8 miles long 
and 5 wide; Snake, 100 miles long and 10 wide; 
Chehalls, 60 miles long and 20 wide; Cowlitz, 50 
miles long and 5 wide; Nesqually, 15 miles long 
and 2 wide; Puyallup, 20 miles long and 3 wide; 
Duwamish and White, 40 miles long and 8 wide; 
Snohomish and Snoqualmie, 40 miles long and 3 
wide; Stilliguamish, 15 miles long and 3 wide; 
Skagit, 60 miles long and 3 wide; and the Nootsack, 
30 miles long and 3 wide. In addition to these are 
many other valleys, with .streams, as the Okana- 



gan, Klickitat, Lewis. Willopah, Quilleute. Samish, 
Yamhill, Umpquah, Deschutes, Rogue River, etc., 
containing hundreds of thousands of acres of laud 
no less fertile and valuable than in those detailed. 

DIVERSITY IS CERTAINTY. 

No better oppoitunity could be desired for the 
intelligent Investment of small capital than In 
market gardening, in the mountain valleys of the 
northwest, as everything brings extraordinarily 
high prices, and the supply does not fill the de- 
mand. All root crops are perfectly at home In any 
portion of this region, the potato especially grow- 
ing to great size, and being of the best quality. 
Specimens were exhibited to me in various valleys 
of Irish potatoes weighing 2 to 4 pounds each, 
turnips, 30 pounds, and rutabagas, 15 to 20 pounds. 
All such vegetables, in fact, as beets, peas, beans, 
tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, onions, etc., are 
successfully and profitably cultivated, the crop Is 
enormous, the quality good, and the market lor all 
that Is not needed atfliome Is sure and at paying 
prices. Nearly every farmer has his garden well 
stocked with all kinds of vegetables. Cabbages 
average twelve pounds to the head; and sweet 
corn, sorghum, lettuce, melons, radishes, egg- 
plant, etc., are noticeably thrifty and superior. 
The average yields per acre of various products in 
Oregon and Washington, not mentioned above, 
are tabulated by good authority as follows : Peas, 40 
bushels; Beans, 36 bushels; Potatoes, 400 bushels; 
Sweet Potato s, 200 bushels; Turnips, 300 bushels; 
Carrots, 100 bushels; Parsnips, 800 bushels; Hay, 
21/2 tons; Cabbages, 20,000 pounds. 

In Montana and Idaho potatoes sell at $1 to $3 
per 100 pounds— sometimes in mining camps much 
higher— and other vegetables in proportion. Take 
here. In connection with grain raising, the produc- 
tion of poultry, eggs, butter, pork, vegetables anti 
similar items now almost unnoticed as " not worth 
bothering about," and the industrious and frugal 
farmer and housewife, managing as of necessity 
do those in the' thickly settled states, should soon 
make themselves independent. It is often almost 
Impossible in the winter to secure fiesh eggs at 75 
cents per dozen in Montana cities, and during the 
past winter we have seen $1 freely offered at Helena 
and Butte. Butter ranged fi'om 40 to 60 cents the 
entire winter, and It was frequently Impossible to 
secure a good article. 

The constant Increase In the magnitude of rail- 
way, mining and other operations In all parts of 
the Territory justifies the belief that any consider- 
able surplus of produce cannot be raised in the 
mountain districts for years to come, and iqitil that 
time prices must remain from 50 to 100 per cent, 
higher than m the " states." Again, agricultural 
laud is usually so beneficently interspersed with 
the great mineral belts that the market will be at 
hand, and the miner accommodated as well as the 
farmer. This reminds me that in Pocahontas 
Valley, near Baker City, eastern Oregon, there is a 
160-acre homestead from one end of which 50 
bushels of wheat per acre was hai-vested last sea- 
son, while fi-om a gulch at the other end gold was 
being mined to the extent of 50 cents pei pan! 



" WJiere Rolls the Orcs'ou." 



II 



The New Fruit Land. 

" For richest and best 
Is the wine of the West, 
That grows by the Beautiful River." 



She Northwest (.including Idaho, Oregon 
and Washington) Is a- very Eden for fruits. 
Apples, peaches, pears, nectarines, apri- 
cots, plums, prunes, grapes, cherries, strawberries, 
currants, and all other small fruits are produced In 
the greatest abundance, and of a quality unsur- 
passed. The sage brush lands of Idaho, naturally 
the very emblem of sterility and desolation, are in 
a few years turned into the finest fruit farms, with 
less trouble than would attend a similar transfor- 
mation on the wild prairies of Iowa or Nebraska, 
A prominent fruit grower estimates that 20,000 
large fruit trees have been set out annually for the 
past five years in the valleys surrounding Boise. 
Several of the orchards in this locality produce 
from 25,000 to 40,000 bushels of fruit each annually, 
there having been buti^ie failure in the crop for 
ten years. 

John Krall, in the suburbs of Boise, has 125 acres 
in fruits (20,000 trees), embracing all the varieties 
known in this latitude. His production last season 
was 500,000 pounds, He finds no fruit Insects yet, 
and pears are never troubled with blight or other 
diseases. His market is mainly In the mining 
camps, and his fruit commands from five to twelve 
cents a pound. Thos. Davis, also near Boise, has a 
seventy-five-acre orchard (10,000 trees). His orchard 
has failed to produce but cntce in the last ten years, 
and his last season's crop of 40,000 bushels of large 
fruits and 500 bushels of berries, must have re- 
turned him a snug little fortune alone. His orchard 
is seventeen years old, and not a tree in it looks 
like decaying. He irrigated the fli'st four or five 
years, but has not found it necessary since. Mr. 
Davis has extensive fruit drying apparatus, and a 
cider and vinegar factory, in which he works up vast 
quantities of fruit annually. Another firm dries 
30,000 to 40,000 pounds of fruit annually, and the 
interest bids fair to grow until at least the demand 
of Idaho and adjacent territory is supplied. Gen. 
L. E. Cartee, ex-Surveyor-General of Idaho, has 
forty varieties of grapes In his vineyard, none of 
which have ever failed to bear a full crop, save the 
Catawba. 



The fourth year's growth of apple trees in Boise 
Valley has yielded 200 pounds; of cherries, 75 
pounds; of peaches, 150 pounds; of pears, 130 
pounds; of plums, 150 pounds; while small fruits, 
such as strawberries, currants, gooseberries, black- 
berries and raspberries are very prolific. The 
growth of wood made by fruit trees, and the quan- 
tity of fruit often found loading the branches Is 
almost Incredible. John Lamb, In Boise City, has 
black locust trees on which I was shown limbs that 
had grown from twelve to fifteen feet in one season, 
and plum, peach and apple trees two years from 
the graft, full of fruit. 

J!^o finer fruit, of the kinds raised there, is pro- 
duced In any quarter of the world than In Oregon 
and Washington, Fruit trees grow from six to 
eight feet the first year, and bear fruit the second, 
third, and fourth years, according to variety. They 
thrive in the valleys as well as on the foot-hills, 
and up to a considerable height in the mountains, 
but especially In sheltered, dry soil. At recent 
fairs, yearling prune, peach and plum trees, eight 
feet four mches high, and yearling cherry-trees 
seven feet high, were exhibited. Apples, pears, 
peaches, grapes, cherries, and the various small 
fruits, for size, beauty and excellence of flavor not 
excelled on the globe, are grown In the orchards of 
that region. Pears blossom along Puget Sound In 
February and March; harvest apples ripen in July. 

Oregon and Washington now gather from their 
loaded branches about 3,000,000 bushels per year, 
with tons upon tons of other fruits. Immense 
drying and canning establishments are being 
started to convert the fruitage Into exporting 
shape. Upon completion of the Oregon Short Line 
we will see car-loads of these delicious products 
shipped eastward In various forms, and the man 
who has a good orchard at the close of 1883 will 
have his competency assured. We are now Im- 
porting millions of pounds of dried fruits (espe- 
cially prunes) from Europe annually, and there is 
no danger of overdoing this business. There Is a 
grand field In this country for vineyards and wine- 
making. 



The Ranch and Dairy. 



|UR beef supply does not keep pace with the 
rapid increase of our population. Since 
18(50 thirty states and territories show a 
decrease in cattle in comparison with the popula- 
tion. A prominent writer on live stock says that 
If cattle breeding In the United States was stopped 
for five years, 'our 28,000,000 cattle would all be 
consumed. Our exports to Europe have quadrupled 
in the last two years, and for the first period since 
the flush "war times" a fair steak costs our city 



cousins in Chicago 25 cents per pound. While I 
write come dispatches from that and other cities 
that laboring men are compelled to deny them- 
selves the luxury of beef. There don't seem to be 
any reason why such an alarming state of affairs 
should continue long, If our consumption could be 
confined to this country, but affairs are In still 
worse shape on the other side of the water. While 
the limit of production for many localities has 
been reached, poinilation increase.^ very rapidly. 



12 



"Where Rolls the Oj'egon." 



We have commenced dividing our good things 
with the hordes of Europe, and their portion will 
grow constantly and rapidly larger. Though rough 
on the consumer, this is certainly a favorable 
outlook for the cattle grower. Not entirely dis- 
similar is the sheep-raising industry, for we import 
as high as §57,000,000 worth of wool and woolens 
In a single year. 

We have over 1,000,000 square miles of pasture 
lands in the United States, with a total of about 
125,000,0(«1 head of live stock. West of the Missouri 
we have 1,000.000,000 acres of land, on much of 
which cattle, sheep and horses can be grazed as 
well as anywhere on the globe. Of this enormous 
tract that magnificent block of 60,000,000 acres in 
the region drained by the Columbia and its tribu- 
taries is the best and the least utilized. The pos- 
sibilities of such a pasture field are almost beyond 
calculation, and we can only begin to realize Its 
value by comparison with grazing regions of the 
East. This area is about two and a half times 
greater than the entire state of Ohio, where, not- 
withstanding the large proportion of lands devoted 
to other interests than stock-raising, there are 
over 10,000,000 head of live stock. The small por- 
tion of New York State devoted to pasturage 
(probably one-fourth, or say 7.500.(K)0 acres) fur- 
nishes grass for nearly 8,0t)0,000 cattle, horses and 
sheep, valued at $600,000,000. Granting that some 
of our upland pastures in the west will not produce 
as nmch beef or mutton as the cultivated pastures 
of the East, yet the Columbia Basin, according Xa 
the best authorities, should easily graze 5,000,000 
cattle and 10,000,000 sheep, and could, when its 
herds have reached these numbers, market at 
least 650,000 cattle, 1,500,000 sheep, and 50,000,000 
pounds of wool annually. At present it contains a 
sprinkling of about 850,000 cattle and 2,000,000 
sheep. I have rode for hours at a time in that 
region over the finest bunch grass lands the sun 
shines on, without seeing an animal, or a trace of 
one. In fact, as will be seen by the above figures. 
If the lands were allotted " in severalty," every 
domestic animal in that country would have a pas- 
ture field of about twenty acres. 

Cattle and horses browse from Christmas to 
Christmas, and roam in their fatness the year 
round upon these carpets of luxuriant bunch grass, 
beside which clover, blue-grass and the far-lamed 
mesquite of Texas sink into insignificance. Hon. 
Z. L. White, long Corresponding Editor of the 
New York Tribune, says : " Montana is the best 
grazing country in the world." Hon. R. W. 
Raymond, United States Commissioner of Min- 
ing Statistics, who has traveled extensively in the 
northwest, says on this subject: "To be more 
exact I might say that to pasture a horse on butich 
grass is like giving him plenty of good My, 7riih 
regular and liberal feeds of grain." 

For a dozen years previous to last winter the 
average loss of cattle or sheep from storms was 
reckoned at not over two per cent per annum. 
Last year the percentage was increased to an 
average throughout the country of ten or twelve 
per cent. Of the thousands of head of oxen which 



are worked hard by different freighting companies 
from May until December, and are then turned 
out poor to forage for themselves until their work 
again commences in the spring, none have ever 
tasted hay or grain. These generally " come up 
smiling " in good condition for work. This experi- 
ence has been entirely successful in the British 
Possessions, 150 to 400 miles north of Montana and 
Idaho. 

The expense of caring for cattle or horses in 
herds of 1,000 or more is about 75 cents per head. 
Adding taxes and we have the total cost of produ- 
cing a $;30 steer in the northwest about §3.50. Men 
who five to ten years ago engaged in the business 
on a small capital find themselves rich. The con- 
sequence is that many business men in Helena, 
Boise City, Walla Walla, and other towns are put- 
ting money into cattle, sheep or horses. All figure 
on a profit of from 25 to 35 per cent per annum on 
cattle or horses and 40 per cent on sheep. Stock 
cattle, all ages and sexes, sell in Montana and 
Idaho at an average of .S18.50 per head, or in Ore- 
gon and Washington at .$12.50. Until the country 
is thoroughly stocked, which will be several years 
yet, no money is needed for a ranch. Improve- 
ments generally consist of rough log huts and 
corrals, which for say 1,000 head of cattle, need not 
cost over $250 if the owner relies largely on his 
own muscle. The additional expense is the cost 
of living, if the owner does his own herding, and 
this will vary from $250 to $400 a year. If a herder 
is employed he receives about $35 per month and 
board. 

I have numerous statements of stockmen who 
commenced four or five years ago with from 100 to 
200 cows, whose herds are now worth $8,000 to 
$15,000 each, and of "capitalists" who show a 
profit of $45,000 to $60,000, from investments of 
$20,000 and $25,000 five and six years ago. Proba- 
bly the most successful of Montana's cattle men is 
Con Kohrs, of Deer Lodge, who commenced on a 
small capital some twelve years ago. He paid $50 
per head for breeding cows, and to enlarge his 
business from time to time since he has often bor- 
rowed money at 2 per cent per month interest. 
He now owns some 12,0(X) head and he markets 
$40,000 worth of beeves annually. A young man 
without capital five years ago agreed to care for the 
herd of D. G. Flurry, Sun River Valley, for one-fifth 
of the increase. He can now get $25,000 for his 
share, or $5,000 per year for his work. 

Thousands of square miles of bunch grass lands 
are still unoccupied, notably in northern Montana, 
bordering the Missouri, Sun, Marias, Teton and 
Milk rivers, and in central and eastern Montana 
in the Musselshell, Judith. Yellowstone, Powder, 
Tongue, and Big Horn river regions. 

Almost without exception those who have en- 
gaged in stockraislng In Idaho have either become 
rich or are In a fair way to do so quickly. I am 
well acquainted with a prominent stockgrower in 
Lemhi Valley who Invested $11,000 In cattle In 
1870. A year or two later he added $9,000 to his 
Investment, mainly buying cows at the then high 
price of $40 per head. Up to the close of 1880 he 



" Where Rolls the Oresrony 



had sold enough of the increase to get back the 
$20,000 Invested, as well as to pay all the expense 
of carrying on his business for the ten years, and 
he has over §100,000 worth of cattle left. His loss 
last year was only one per cent, and it has averaged 
less than three per cent for years at a stretch. 
Lorenzo Falls, in Pah-Simari Valley, Idaho, has 
been in the business twelve years, and says he 
does not think he has lost an animal on account 
of bad weather or lack of natural feed in all that 
time. He now owns 700 head. E. R. Hawley, who 
has 2,000 head of cattle ranging in Salmon and 
Lemhi valleys, has had no loss to exceed two or 
three per cent. Some 25,000 head, feeding in eastr 
ern Idaho, never see shelter or prepared food and 
are doing well. There is still room for many herds 
in eastern Idaho, within easy reach of the Utah & 
Northern Branch of the Union Pacific, especially 
in the Teton region and along the Snake. 

In Owyhee and Ada counties, western Idaho, and 
all along the Snake for 400 miles, in sight of the 
Oregon Short Line, as well as in northern Idaho 
and eastern Oregon and Washington, are vast and 
only partially occupied cattle ranges, where the 
fortunate few who are established, are on a sure 
and short road to fortune. The largest herds run 
up to 5,000, while probably two-thirds of all the 
cattle in the territory are divided up into herds not 
exceeding 5(K) head. 

MUTTON AND WOOL. 

We could, in the new Northwest, grow all the 
wool needed to clothe a nation. To grow it would 
enrich thousands of husbandmen, and to manu- 
facture it would build up dozens of important 
cities. Rheims began in 1801 the munufacture of 
merino, and now has some G0,000 workmen running 
200,000 spindles. Bradford, where the great Eng- 
lish worsted works are located, has grown from 
14,000 to 100,000 as a direct result of establishing 
the factories in question. 

As already noted, the profits of wool-growing are 
by many placed higher than In cattle-growing. All 
agree that the wool-clip .will pay every item of 
expense, leaving the increase a clear gain. The 
annual increase of 1,000 ewes two years old and 
upwards will range from 85 to 115 per cent, while 
the Increase of flocks of all ages and sexes Is 
placed at 48 per cent. The loss from all causes is 
estimated by a majority of the prominent breeders 
with whom I have conversed at 2 to 8 per cent. 

Flocks are sheltered in winter, but few receive 
any feed other than that gathered by them- 
selves. Messrs. Cook Bros., of Smith River Val- 
ley, sixty-five miles east of Helena, who own 
25,000 head of high grade Merino and Cotswold 
sheep, put up hay for five successive seasons to 
guard against storms, but only fed their flocks a 
few days during average seasons. 

While Montana has made excellent progress in 
this industry, (increasing her flocks from 10,000 
head in 1873 to 400,000 in 1881,) Idaho has been so 
generally given over to cattle that wool-growing 
receives but little attention, although the climate 
and grasses are favorable to the production of the 
best mutton and finest grades of wool. Owyhee 



county probably contains the largest flocks,' there 
being some 40,000 head in that county alone. There 
Is but little winter feeding, and the wool-clip Is 
supposed to pay all expenses, leaving the increase 
clear profit. Robert Noble, whose flocks range 
near the Oregon Short Line, in the county named, 
was nine years ago working for $30 per month. 
He invested a few years' wages in sheep, and is 
now accounted worth $30,000 to $40,000. 

Sheep raising is emphatically the poor man's 
Industry, for, with a free range, timber at hand for 
shade and corrals, and in fact no capital needed 
for running expenses after the first season, he is 
master of the situation if he can command any 
sum from $500 upwards for the purchase of a 
small flock. Better still is the plan of leasing 
flocks, by which the trusty workingman without a 
dollar can secure a flock of from 1,000 to 2,000 head 
for, say, five years, giving the owner one-half the 
increase and wool, and returning the original num- 
ber of sheep at the termination of the lease. 
Many a poor man has become wealthy by starting 
in the business this way. 

Horses, more hardy than either sheep or cattle, 
because they will paw away the deepest snows that 
may cover their pasturage, are also being intro- 
duced in large numbers, despite the large amount 
of capital required for a respectable start. The 
average Increase of colts is 80 per cent of the 
mares. No hay or grain Is usually fed except to 
the thoroughbred leaders of the herds, of which 
there are now quite a large showing. An authority 
on such matters estimates that there Is room for 
200,000 head of horses in Yellowstone Valley alone, 
where this industry seems to be taking the lead. 

THE DAIRY. 

A thousand dairymen are needed right now In 
the region tributary to the Utah & Northern Branch 
of the Union Paciflc, the Northern Pacific and 
Oregon Short Line. There are probably more and 
better openings for dairying in that country than 
for any other branch of rural industry. The cattle 
king, with his thousands of cows, often either 
buys his butter or does without, and the denizens 
of cities, towns and mining camps now look tor 
the butter famine as regularly as winter comes. 
Just now a prime article of ranch butter is worth 
from 40 to 75 cents per pound, and it will average 
35 or 40 the year round. Climate, pasturage and 
water combine to render dairying there a very 
satisfactory pursuit. Cows cost not a cent for 
their keep, and the product of butter or cheese Is 
a clear gain, the increase in stock paying all 
expenses. Good dairy cows can be purchased at 
$25 to $35 per head. 

In the center of the best grazing region in the 
world, with a superior climate, an abundance of 
clear cold running water, and whole " counties of 
grass " to be had for the taking, Helena, Butte, 
Boise, and other Idaho and Montana cities send 
to other states for hundreds of thousands of 
pounds of butter and chee.se annually. Haste the 
day when this grand region will be supplying its 
own demand, and sending its car-loads of butter 



14 



Where Rolls the Oresron." 



and cheese east by express dally. What an advan- 
tage the dairyman oi the West will have over his 
brother of the East. He can graze his cows on 
lands that cost him nothing, winter them at a cost 
of not to exceed $2 per head, and make and keep 
his butter and cheese In nice shape without the 



use of ice, while the dairyman of the East has 
$5,000 to $10,000 Invested in every 100 acres of his 
pasture, expends $20 on every cow for winter keep, 
and suffers more or less annoyance and expense 
on account of the hot days and nights of his busiest 
season. 



The Mineral Belts. 



^H^BOUT the headwaters of the Columbia— 
^^ftjKjjg but yesterday, it seems, a vast incognita 
gi^cJ^ infested by savages— are clustered gold 
and silver veins as well as those of the baser 
metals, whose number so soon found taxes our 
belief, whose extent Is phenomenal, and whose 
richness shows no parallel in mining history. It 
is a mineral region which alone, If rightly utilized, 
could give employment to a nation of miners, and 
enrich great commonwealths. It is the new hope 
of the mining Industry of America. 

Of the $2,000,000,000 in gold and silver added to 
the permanent wealth of the world by the United 
States since 1850, that portion of the Northwest 
covered by these pages has contributed about 
$325,000,000. To secure this result but a handful 
of miners, working under the most disadvanta- 
geous circumstances, have little more than 
scratched the surface of a mere fraction of this 
royal metal kingdom. From Yellowstone Park on 
the east to the Coast range on the west, 700 miles, 
and from the headwaters of the Owyhee River, In 
Nevada, on the south, to those of the Kootenai in 
the British Possessions, on the north, 800 miles, Is 
a succession of extensive districts rich in gold, 
silver, copper, iron, coal, lead, sulphur, salt, and 
other minerals. The metallterous fields of other 
nations are but pigmies compared to this. 
About the headwaters of the Columbia are gold 
and silver veins In proportion so prodigious and in 
utility so richly endowed that they have in less 
than a score of years, while the region was yet a 
wilderness, unconquered by railways, yielded 
$250,000,000. This Is from a mere fragment of the 
mineral Held of the Northwest. The richest gold 
field of its size ever discovered In the world Is the 
famous Alder Gulch, western Montana, where day 
after day men have made $200 each by simple 
panning and sluicing, and where In a section two 
or three miles long by a few rods wide, an average 
of $8,000,000 per year was taken for six or seven 
years. The total product of that little patch since 
1863, is variously estimated at from $60,000,000 to 
$70,000,000. Not far away is Montana Bar, from 
which $1,000 in gold has been taken from a single 
pan of dirt. It is half a mile long and 200 to 300 
feet wide. Each 100 feet of this half mile has 
" panned out " more than $100,000 and the novel 
spectacle of four-horse wagon loads of gold leav- 
ing camp, with a batallion of armed men as a 
guard, has been witnessed there more than once. 
While these gulches are being rapidly exhausted 
they teli the story plainly of the stupendous wealth 



of surrounding quartz veins from which came 
their golden sands and nuggets, and which pro- 
mise a lavish yield tor centuries. 

Helena and Butte, Montana, are rapidly advanc- 
ing to the front, as among the few great mining 
centers of the world. The former Is built on a 
.golden foundation— a gold field that has yielded 
richly for years— and the very brick used in the 
stately business blocks and residences show by 
assay an Important percentage of the precious 
metal. It is surrounded by thousands of square 
miles of mountain ranges, whose Interiors are 
honeycombed with gold and sliver quartz veins, 
whose wealth two years ago was not dreamed of. 
Butte, the silver queen of all the Northwest, is 
built upon ground through which are traced silver 
veins, large and rich as any in Colorado, and Is 
shaded by mountains In which 3,000 men are now 
delving for the wealth they know lies there. A 
district here only three miles square is yielding 
$3,000,000 in silver and copper annually, and will 
soon double that yield. 

Westward and northward, along Clarke's Fork, 
stretch gold and sliver districts for hundreds of 
miles— a metal belt. Indeed, which has been traced 
to the shores of Alaska, 1,500 miles away— which 
will afford a dazzling field for raining enterprise 
long after our present population shall have 
vanished. 

Bnt It is along Lewis Fork, or the Snake, that 
Nature with most prodigal hand has strewn riches 
which shall soon astonish the world. Indeed the 
wealth already laid bare would, if shown in smaller 
fields, like Colorado or Arizona, excite mining 
circles in both hemispheres as they were never 
excited before. The bed of Snake river and Its 
contiguous bars constitute one vast gold placer 
mining field, stretching from where they are 
crossed by the Utah and Northern Branch of the 
Union Pacific Railway in eastern Idaho, to the 
main Columbia, 1,000 miles to the northwest. 
Bright fine gold Is found almost everywhere. 
Its extreme fineness has alone baffled the skill of 
the many miners who have sought fortune there. 
Ordinary methods of saving it have generally 
proved faulty, until, by a recent invention, copper 
plates, electro-plated with silver, have proved just 
the thing. These simple and economical machines 
are now being strung along Snake River for hun- 
dreds of miles, and many companies are taking 
out handsome fortunes in " flour gold." There is 
room here for the enterprise of ail the placer 
miners of our Union, and the time will doubtless 



" Where Rolls the Oreo^on!' 



15 



soon come when the golden product of the Snake 
river mines will be run well up In the millions 
annually. It Is believed that the source of all this 
gold has been found in the'mammoth quartz mines 
of the Cariboo District, eastern Idaho, a short 
distance north of the Oregon Short Line. If so. a 
mining center will soon be founded there which 1 
should throw into the shade even far-famed Alder I 
Gulch or Montana Bar. 

About the headwaters of Salmon, Boise and | 
Wood rivers, in southern-central Idaho, Is a region 
some 25,000 square miles In extent, whose early : 
history borders upon the marvelous. Until three 
years ago its nearest railway was from 250 to 300 
miles distant from the leading mines and the 
country was practically unknown. Since then it 
has had the Utah & Northern Branch within 150 
miles, and has managed to attract some attention 
in spite of the Leadville, Gunnison and Arizona 
stampedes. The Oregon Short Line will go to the 
heart of it the coming summer, and the thousands 
of miners and others who make a pilgrimage In 
Pullman cars that way will have something of a 
surprise. They will And of local note at Atlanta, 
the Atlanta ledge, which, traced for miles on the 
surface, is 50 to 100 feet wide, and has shipped 
(by wagon 300 and rail 1,100 miles) a thousand 
tons (a small portion of its product) to Omaha, 
where $700,000 were extracted from It ; also, at 
Bonanza City, the Custer ledge, the giant among [ 
American mines, from whose unparalleled out- ! 
crop of .200 feet above the surface four men during i 
eleven months of last year quarried ore which < 
yielded $1,000,000, and which has, through a small 
20-stamp mill, poured out $1,400,000 in the last 
fourteen months; they will find at Idaho City a 
small area of the placer ground of one county 
which has produced $20,000,000 in gold— more than ' 
a million a year for eighteen years— and other 
larger areas which in years to come will often : 
duplicate Idaho's total past placer yield of $65,000,- [ 
000. Sliver City, Idaho, they will discover, is the ' 
home of the famous Elmore, which, with a small 
20-stamp mill, in thirty days has poured out 
$500,000— the largest month's yield, I believe, of : 
one mine with a mill of this limited capacity yet 
recorded In the world. Among the other tens of 
thousands of quartz veins already found Is the 
Morning Star, whose shipment of 100 tons from Sil- 
ver City to the Atlantic seaboard, containing $100,- 
000, is fresh in the minds of at least the owners. 
A near neighbor of the Morning Star, In trying to 
duplicate this out-put fell only $10,000 short, and 
added another brilliant achievement to those In 
mining history by yielding $4,000,000— $1,000,000 
for each 100 feet of its 400 feet of depth— in a com- 
paratively brief period. Along the Yankee Fork 
of Salmon River they will perchance gaze in won- 
der at the Charles Dickens, whose great ore-body 
Is so rlcfl that two men have pounded $11,500 out 
of It in hand mortars In a single month, or the 
Montana mine, where five men extracted $80,000 
last year in eight months, and shipped ore In 
20-ton lots worth $3,000 per ton. They will be 
shown thousands of pounds of ore from these j 



mines glittering with the native gold, and worth 
$5 per pound. These things come like a revelation 
from a region much of which is still marked unex- 
plored country on some of our maps. 

WOOD RIVER AND SAWTOOTH. 

So much is being asked about these districts 
now days that I will briefly describe them here. 
The Wood River and Sawtooth region is m south- 
ern centra) Idaho, about 275 miles northwest of 
Ogden, Utah, and 128 miles west of Blacktoot.. 
(Utah and Northern Branch Union Pacific Rail- 
way), from which It Is reached by daily stage. 
Wood River is a clear, strong current 150 feet wide 
and from three to four feet deep. Dozens of 
branches enter It from the east and west, along 
which are grouped the mining districts which are 
so rapidly making it famous. These districts are 
reached by easy grades, and rise from an elevation 
of 5,209 feet at Bellevue to between 8,000 and 9,000 
feet at Galena, a distance of 45 miles. The forma- 
tion Insures permanency ot many fissure veins al- 
ready discovered, and the uniform richness of the 
ore is without parallel in mining history. The 
silver belt is 20 to 50 miles in width, and 130 to 140 
miles In length. The Wood River ores are mainly 
galena and carbonates, 60 to 80 per cent lead, 
with some antimony and copper, yielding $100 to 
$400 silver per ton. Very rich gold ores also occur 
in some of the mines. The Sawtooth mines have 
large veins of milling ores, carrying silver and 
gold. Among the leading mines are the May- 
flower, which during the past season has shipped 
1,000 tons of ore yielding 175 ounces of silver per 
ton and 70 per cent lead, and has recently been 
sold for $400,000 ; the Idahoan, which produced 
$200,000 during 1881 ; the Bullion, which, with only 
a part of the season's work, yielded $100,000, and 
with its splendid new machinery is in shape to 
take that out monthly ; the West Fork, which with 
several other claims was sold by the discoverers to 
a Philadelphia company for $16,000, and from 
which one man then extracted 300 tons of ore 
worth $50,000 in 20 days ; the Vienna, which 
has shipped ore In large lots worth $300 per ton; 
the Pilgrim, Solace, Mountain King. Columbia and 
several others, which are yielding large quantities 
of ore worth $200 to $500 per ton. The total pro- 
duction of Wood river mines during 1881 was over 
$1,100,000. The ore shipped averaged over 150 
ounces silver per ton, and 70 per cent lead. The 
mines of this marvelous region have paid for their 
development and yielded a revenue from the start. 
A mine in the Wood river region Is cash In hand 
to Its owner, whenever he Is ready to sell. Three 
smelters have been built and others are in pro- 
gress. It is estimated that at least 20,000 tons of 
ore and bullion will be shipped this year. 

This entire Wood river and Sawtooth country 
will be accessible by rail during the coming sum- 
mer. The Union Pacific Company Is extending its 
Oregon Short Line from Granger, Wyoming, north- 
westwardly through Idaho and the track will. In 
all probability, reach Wood river 40 miles below 
the mines In June or July, and the most promis- 
ing camps will be reached a month or two later. 



i6 



Where Rolls the Oyegon." 



In Western and Northern Idaho and In Eastern 
Oregon and Washington are tlozens of extensive 
districts promising very well, but of which little 
can be said, because of their slight development. 
Few quartz mines are rich enough to pay for 
working to any great depth so long as they are 
500 miles from rail or water transportation. The 
mineral belt along the Blue Mountain Range in 
Eastern Oregon, of which Baker City Is the center, 
is about 100 miles long from east to west and 
varies in width from 20 to 35 miles and embraces 
both placer and quartz mines. The Virtue mine 
near Baker City has yielded §2,000,000. some of Its 
quartz running $10,000 to the ton. The famous 
Connor Creek gold mine is 45 miles from Baker 
City. Within a radius of 40 miles from the same 
place are the Rye Valley, Monument, and Cable 
lode sUver mines, all rich lissure veins, and sur- 
rounded by others. The gulches of Baker County 
yield nearly $1,000,000 per year, and have main- 
tained that yield for some t.venty years. There Is, 
a vast area of rich placer ground there worthy the 
attention of capital. 

There is a wonderful future in store for this 
great region as a bullion producer. There is an 
immediately brilliant future for hundreds of min- 
ing men, who can take a reasonable amount of 
capital there to develop poorly worked claims, and 
for thousands of experienced prospectors whose 
only capital consists of pick, shovel, and a sum- 
mer's •' grub stake." In fact, the names of the 
mineral veins is legion, and unnumbered thous- 
ands are yet to be discovered. 

Sufiflcient development has been made to demon- 
strate the fact that this is the richest and most 
extensive mineral belt ever found, with tens of 
thousands of square miles of the rugged Salmon 
river, C<«ur d' Alene, Wasatch and Bitter Root 
mountain ranges which white man's foot has 
never trod, yet to be heard from. Nature has done 
as much for this country as for any on earth. It 
contains every element desired to build up several 
of the richest mining communities in the world, 
and has only lacked the present gratifying advance 
of the iron horse. Its climate is mild and condu- 
cive to economical mining operations the year 
round. Its smelting facilities of fuel, lime, water, 
and all varieties and grades of ore are unexcelled. 

IRON, COAL, COPPER, SALT, ETC. 

Alternating with the precious metals are valuable 
coal and iron deposits, which will soon be utilized 
in smelting works, forges and rolling mills, to 
make radiant the night, and furnish the iron bands 
that shall join the producers of the valleys with 
the armies of consumers in the mountains. Bitu- 
minous coal, iron and copper abound In nearly 
every county in Montana. Copper is found in 
Immense deposits, assaying from 20 to 50 per cent 
pure. There is an Iron mountain In Deer Lodge 
county, three or four times larger than the celebra- 
ted Iron mountain In Missouri. Coal beds He within 
three miles. There are 60,000 square miles of coal 



lands in Montana— enough to cover the whole sur- 
face of Pennsylvania, and extend well over on the 
soil of each of her neighbors. 

Along Twin Creeks, at Hodges Pass, on Smith's 
Fork, along the shores of Bear Lake, and at other 
points near the eastern Idaho boundary, (all adja- 
cent to the Oregon Short Line.) are extensive 
veins of excellent coal. Some of this Is said to 
coke superbly. The famous Mammoth vein In 
this locality shows seventy feet of pure coal, and 
with companion veins, separated by veins of clay, 
will aggregate 200 feet in thickness. Rich copper 
ores are also found in this region. A good quality 
of lignite has been found near Boise, bituminous 
at Horseshoe Bend, twenty miles from Boise, also 
between the Payette and Welser, seventy miles, 
and at the Big Bend of Snake river, ninety miles 
from Boise. A good blacksmlthlng coal has also 
been found on Sucker creek, twenty-two miles 
north of Sliver City, and several large deposits 
near Lewiston, In northern Idaho. 

Idaho bids fair to rank first among our " Iron 
States." Near Rocky Bar Is a seven-loot vein of 
ore carrying flfty-six per cent pure Iron. Within 
two miles of Challis is an immense body of mica- 
ceous iron, yielding fifty to sixty per cent of that 
metal. At several points along Wood river oxide 
ores carrying sixty to seventy-five per cent Iron are 
found In Inexhaustible quantities. Three miles 
east of South Mountain, in southwestern Idaho, is 
the great Narragansett Iron mine, where a surface 
of 100 by 600 feet of the vein has been stripped, 
and the limit not reached. A cut Into this vein 
twenty feet deep and fifty feet wide exposes a 
solid body of magnetic and specular ore, which 
contains ninety-five to ninety-eight per cent pure 
iron. This ore Is so pure and easily smelted that 
It has. In its natural state, been cast Into shoes 
and dies for stamp mil Is at the Sliver City foundry. 
A fifteen-foot vein of hematite, near by. Is also 
very rich In Iron, and carries .S30 per ton in gold. 

Oregon and Washington abound In coal and 
Iron. Near Baker City are mammoth deposits of 
metallic Iron carrying 80 to 95 per cent of that 
metal. Vast coal fields are found along Puget 
Sound, from wh'ch 300,00<.) tons are now mined an- 
nually. Blast furnaces are turning out excellent 
pig Iron from the ores of the Willi amette Valley 
and Puget Sound. 

Besides these Interests, there are rich copper 
mines In various localities In Idaho; a mountain 
of sulphur running to 85 per cent pure sulphur at 
Soda Springs, on the Oregon Short Line: several 
ledges of fine merchantable mica In western Idalio, 
white, pink, gray and other shades of superb 
building stone, and a veritable mine of wealth In 
salt springs. These are In eastern Idaho. The 
waters are charged with the finest and purest salt 
In the world— superior to the celebrated Onondaga 
brand, manufactured at Syracuse, while neither 
•' Liverpool," "Turk's Island," or "Saginaw" salt 
approach It In purity, or are as white, clear, or 
soluble in liquids. The production runs up to 
1,500,000 pounds annually. 



" Where Rolls the Oregon." 



17 



The Forests. 



Ili^iK^BARLY all the mountain country of west- 
ern Montana and central and northern 
Idaho, and the mountain and coast lands 
of Oregon and Washington, are covered by a growth 
of timber such as in diversity and size no other 
like space on the earth's surface can boast of. I 
have picked my way for miles through these for- 
ests, where the ground could not have given room 
for the cord-wood of trees felled and thus worked up. 

Throughout western Montana and the central, 
northern and eastern parts of Idaho, easy of access 
from the Oregon Short Line, the woodlands pos- 
sess a heavier growth than in a majority of the 
timbered States east of the' Rocky Mountains, 
while in the remaining sections the timber supiily 
Is not inferior to that of the most of our prairie 
States. There are various varieties of fir, the 
white, red and black spruce, scrub oak, yellow and 
white pine, mountain mahogany, juniper, tama- 
rack, bh-ch, Cottonwood, alder and willow. Along 
the Clearwater, In north Idaho, and in several 
other sections, white pine logs 100 feet long and 
Ave feet in diameter, and red and white cedar trees 
two to five feet in diameter are common. 

But it is further west that the monarch of the 
forest is the Ideal monarch. Said the eloquent 
Samuel Wilkeson, after a careful tour of observa- 
tion : " Oh ! what timber. On the Atlantic 
slope, where it was my misfortune to be born, and 
where for ftfty-two years I have been cheated by 
circumstances out of a sight of the real America, 
there are no woods. East of the Rocky Mountains 
trees are brush. They may do for brooms ; pieces 
of ships are got out of them, and splinters for 
houses. But the utmost throe of the Atlantic- 
slope soil and climate could not in ages produce a 
continuous plank which would reach from stem to 
stern of a thousand-ton clipper-ship. Puget 
Sound, anywhere and everywhere, will give you tor 
the cutting, if you are equal to such a crime with 
an axe, trees that will lie straight on the ground, 
and cover two hundred and fifty feet of length and 
measure twenty-live feet around, above two men's 
heights from the ground (they are cut from stag- 
ings), and that will yield one hundred and fifty 
lineal feet of clear, solid wood below the branches. 
They are monarchs, to whom all worshipful men 
inevitably lift their hats. To see one fall under 
blows of steel or under the embrace of fire is to 
experience a pang of sorrow." 

The varieties of chief economic value are Doug- 
las or Oregon pine, yellow fir, black spruce, hem- 
lock, white pine, yellow pine, Oregon cedar, arbor 
vitse, yellow cypress, oak, broak-leaved maple, 
dogwood, arbutus, aspen and cottonwood. The 
Douglas pine, or red flr, attains a, height of 200 to 
300 feet, is straight as an arrow, and is the red 
hickory of Americ.i. It is sent across two oceans 
to the ship-yards of Europe, because, as the French 
experts at the Toulon dock yard reported, after 
subjecting it to the severest tests known, " the 
masts and spars are woods rare and exceptional 
for dimensions and superior qualities, strength. 



lightness, absence of knots and other grave vices; 
they may be bent and twisted sever;d times In 
contrary directions without breaking." Lloyds, 
the English builders, report of it: " We have tested 
all the woods in the world, and find the red flr 
best." A stick of this wood an inch square resisted 
a pressure of 2,000 pounds, while other woods 
broke at 1,500 and 1,600 pounds. They broke 
square off, while finally, when the red flr did part, 
it broke in a long rent. Along Puget Sound fre- 
quently a single tree is cut which when ready 
for shipment in loorth ax much (xs would pay for 
200 <xcrex of government kmd on which it grero. 

Hon. Wm. H. Seward said, in 1869, " sooner or 
later the world's ship-yards will be located on 
Puget Sound." Ships may be built stauncher fi-om 
the long timbers of Puget Sound than it is possible 
to make eastern or European built vessels, and 
the cost is much less. For instance, in the cost of 
a 1,200 ton ship built in Bath, Maine, and a similar 
one constructed at Puget Sound, there is a saving 
of $20,000 in favor of the latter, and when comple- 
ted it is more safe and durable than the more 
costly one. 

The census bureau estimates that the area of 
good timber on the Paciflc Northwest, which often 
grows on the best soil, capable, when denuded 
of its timber, of producing any thing, exceeds that 
of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the great 
lumber-producing region of America ; and further 
calculates that the day is near at hand when the 
lumber Industry there will reach the figures of the 
pineries of the Upper Mississippi and the lakes. 
Their estimate does not include tlie forests at the 
headwaters of the Columbia in western Wyoming, 
nortliwesiern Idaho and western Montana, which 
are now equal to those of Maine before they had 
felt the axe. 

When the lumber industry of the Columbia river 
country has reached the importance predicted by 
the census bureau, it will amount to §125,000,000 
annually, to say nothing of the millions involved in 
manufacturing the plain lumber into the many 
forms demanded for the use of man. The Wash- 
ington Territory product of 300,000,000 feet in 1881 
went largely to the markets of South America, the 
Sandwich Islands, eastern Asia and Australia, and 
to a less extent to marts of our country. When 
the Oregon Short Line reaches these unequaled 
forests and affords them a market in our prairie 
States, (as short a haul to some of them as the 
lumber of the northern lake region now requires) 
our home consumption will be added to the foreign 
to create a stupendous activity in Columbia's 
" odorous piney woods, " as well as an enormous 
business for the railroads, and a better and cheap- 
er material for the consumer. It is time some new 
forest land was opened up. for our eastern forests 
are vanishing as tinder in a blaze. About 35,000,000 
acres of our best eastern forest area have been 
stripped of trees in the past ten years. With the 
present tremendous consumption by railroads, 
manufactures and building operations continued a 



•' Where Rolls the Orcs:o)i! 



little more than twenty years all the heavy natural 
forests of the east will have been swept away. A 
vast commerce will then be reversed— the west 
will supply the east. Preparation is being made 
for this on Paget Sound. There are seven large 
export inllls at work; with a daily capacity of 700.- 



000 feet, and several smaller ones, with others 
building. A barrel factory turns out 3,000 barrels 
daily, and lath aud shingle mills that turn out a 
good cargo in the same time. Loggers are wanted 
at good wages. 



Scenery, Springs, Game and Fish. 

" Oil ! tiiere U sweetness in tlie mountain air, 

And life wliicli bloated ease can never tiope to share." 



|0 the tourist the unrivalled panorama af- 
forded by the Columbia for over two thous- 
and miles will always be the crowning at- 
traction of our continent. It alone of all the rivers 
of the West has broken those stern barriers, the 
great mountain ranges beyond the plains. Through 
the fierce struggle which thus resulted have we a 
glorious legacy— the grandest river scenery in the 
world. The palisades of the Hudson, the over- 
hanging cliffs of the upper Mississippi and the 
embattled precipitous environment of the Rhine 
are here on a mammoth scale. There are also 
elements of grandeur in views of snow-clad peaks, 
of entrancing beauty in peaceful passages of the 
great river through miles upon miles of mountain- 
locked lakes, and of the phenomenal and mar- 
velous in the wonder-land of Yellowstone not pos- 
sessed by any of the world's more noted rivers. 

No such cluster or aggregation of wonders exist 
anywhere as are found in Yellowstone National 
Park, near the headwaters of the Columbia— 
a public pleasure ground, by the way, one-third 
larger than'Rhode Island. The largest springs 
and geysers In the world are there— 10,000 of 
them, say the authorities- some of which at fre- 
quent intervals throw upwards 250 to 300 feet 
rivers of boiling water. There are fountains of 
boiling paint of most vivid colors, mountains of 
glass, canons excelling in depth, carving and color- 
ing any on earth, lakes whose shore lines run off 
into the hundreds of miles, mountains of sulphur, 
and cataracts of volume and height not found 
elsewhere. The lovely cascade of Tower Creek is 
not equaled by Minnehaha; while the Great Falls 
of the Yellowstone, so intimately connected with 
all the strangely fascinating enchantments of the 
delicately-carved and gorgeously crowned Grand 
Canon, excel in sublimity the world-known Ni- 
agara. The height of Niagara Falls— 164 feet— is 
226 feet less than our beautiful falls of the Na- 
tional Park. 

Following tbe Snake out of this charmed region 
we soon pass those migiity sentinels the Three 
Tetons, whose wondrous height, abruptness and 
bulk is, according to the opinion of noted foreign 
travelers, the nearest approach our great mountain 
ranges afford to the Matterhorn of the Alps, the 
highest being 13,833 feet above the sea. This is 
the grandest view afforded by the Utah & North- 
ern Branch of the Union Pacific Ry. Southward 
and westward in Southern Idaho the trail is being 



blazed for the Oregon Short Line, where the shriek 
of the Iron horse is soon to blend with the " roar 
of waters that" have In solitude been making rain- 
bows since the birth of the world " are the Ameri- 
can Falls, a fifty foot plunge of the foaming torrent 
over black lava crags into a dark weird basin— the 
falls spaned by a splendid iron bridge of the rail- 
way just noted. Some 75 miles westward a sub- 
terranean river pours from mysterious openings in 
the north side of Snake River Canon, dashing with 
terrific force and volume into the waters of the 
Snake, 150 feet below. Nameless here this singu- 
lar stream is supposed to be the resurrection and 
new life of Lost River which died and was buried 
in the desert some seventy miles to the north. 

Near by is that greater wonder, the Western 
Niagara— Shoshone Falls— which the lamented 
Richardson thus eloquently pictured : The cata- 
ract is unequaled in the world, save by Niagara, of 
which it vividly reminds us. It is not all height 
like Yosemite, nor all breadth and power like the 
Great Falls of the Missouri, nor all strength and 
volume like Niagara ; but combines the three ele- 
ments. The torrent is less than Niagara, and its 
crescent summit appears less than 1,000 feet wide. 
But the descent— 200 feet— is one-third greater ; 
while above the brink solemn portals of lava ris- 
ing for hundreds of feet on each bank supply an 
element of grandeur which the monarch of cata- 
racts altogether lacks. The fall itself is of purest 
white, interspersed with myriads of glittering, 
glassy drops— a cataract of snow with an avalanche 
of jewels. Mocking and belittling all human splen- 
dor, Nature Is here in her lace and pearls, her robe 
of diamonds and tiara of rainbow." 

While these grand scenes line the Snake, far to the 
northward, along Clarke's Fork, is an equal accu- 
mulation of splendors of the physical world. Lake 
Pend d'Oreille, through whose entire length of 100 
miles Clarke's Fork plows Us way, and although 
five hundred miles from the ocean, could float the 
navies of the world ; Lake Coeur d'Alene, nearly 
forty miles long, and scarce rivalled anywhere for 
magnificence of Alpine setting or beauty of pine- 
clothed isles; Spoken falls, a cataract of wondrous 
power and beauty, and some of the most sublime 
vistas of canon scenery mind can conceive are un- 
dying feasts for the tourist's eye. 

Down the Columbia, from the junction of 
Clarke's Fork with the Snake, is 200 miles of river 
scenery unequalled in the world. To the south. 



Where Rolls the Ores^oiiy 



19 



In the vast seclusion of eastern Ortgon, is the 
mountain range which of all others the esthetic 
Oregonian loves. Lower than the Sierras or the 
Rockies, it has a grace of outline and a lustre of foli- | 
age unknown to either. I refer to the Blue Moun- 
tains, the fairest August garden on earth. Cape | 
Horn, 700, and Castle Rock, 1,000 feet high, are dis- , 
tinguishing landmarks which rise precipitous from 
the Columbia's edge. The Cascade Range shoots 
up from 1,000 to 3,000 feet along the passage of the j 
mighty river through it, and from Its battlements 
are such garnishings of a wondrous pioture as ; 
Multnomah Falls, 800 feet high, La Tourelle Falls, \ 
400 feet, and half a dozen others, beside which 
Minnehaha or Montmorency would be counted 
very modest creations. Through frequent open- i 
ings in gorges, or at the verge of a beautiful stretch 
of plain, can be seen towering above all other 
objects Mount Hood, snow-covered from base to 
summit, '-oppressive in its majesty, beautiful in j 
form, angelic In its whiteness— the union of all 
that is great and pure and impressive." 

The name of mineral springs— healing waters- 
is legion. Hot and cold ; delicious as the nectar of 
the gods, or offensive enough for one's worst en- 
emy ; soda, sulphur. Iron, salt, magnesia— these 
and others in every form known— In number suffi- 
cient for the uses of multitudes and in volume 
and efficacy apparently ample " for the healing of 
the nations." The most remarkable group in 
America, and the only one I have space to note, are 
the Soda Springs of Oneida County, eastern Idaho. 
They are situated in a magnificent valley 7,230 
above the level of the sea, and are easily reached 
from the east or west by the Oregon Short Line, 
which passes through this region on its way to 
Portland. Within a radius of two or three miles 
are scores of large springs, the waters ranging 
from almost ice cold to warm, containing magne- 
?la, soda, Iron, sulphur, and various other constit- 
uents, in such proportions as to have a great pow- 
er on disease, and some of them being so highly 
charged with carbonic acid and other gases as to 
prove a most pleasing beverage. The waters are a 
superb tonic, and are effecting remarkable cures 
of skin and blood diseases, dyspepsia, rheumatism 
andmany other ills our flesh Is heir to. The Soda 
Springs region abounds in other attractions worth 
crossing our continent to see, among them mag- 
nificent drives, beautiful lakes, extinct volcanoes, 
geyser cones, sulphur mountains, a boiling lake of 
the same material, some wonderful caves, superb 
fishing and hunting, and an atmosphere calcu- 
lated to bring the blush of health to any but most 
hopeless invalids. It promises to be the great 
Sanitarium of the West, and for years has been 
the resort of hundreds annually, who have been 
willing to " stage it " for 40 or 50, or even 100 miles 
to reach its charmed precincts. The delicious 
soda and magnesia waters are becoming so popu- 
lar that tens of thousands of bottles are shipped 
each season to distant consumers. Modest accom- 
modations at modest prices are available at a quiet 
hostelry of the village. A large hotel, with beauti- 
ful grounds, will be added next season by the 



Union Pacific Company to what nature has so glo- 
riously commenced. 

FISH AND GAME. 

" Merry it is in the good greenwood. 

When the mavis and merle are singing, 

When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, 
And the hunter's horn is ringing." 

I put the fish first, for in its food fishes this 
region has a mine of wealth better than Its best 
vein of gold or silver. Its innumerable rivers, 
creeks and rivulets, snow-fed and mountain-born, 
clear almost as 1 he azure above, are inhabited by 
myriads of salmon, trout, grayling and other fish, 
gamy and eager enough for the bait to make the 
heart of the real disciple of Izaak Walton " beat 
and burn and bound with rapture " But Its great 
rivers, bays and soitnds are so alive with the fish 
of commerce that they have a more important 
interest to the thoughtful economist. Salmon of 
many varieties abound literally in millions, and 
are taken and canned by the thousand dally, neariy 
1.000,000 cases— 24,000,000 cans, or 50,000,000 pounds 
—having been exported last year. Then there is 
another fish so superior to the salmon that, accord- 
ing to a connolseur, the latter "Is not worthy of 
lying In the same basket with it, and the speckled 
trout only as a gracious favor should be permitted 
to get into the frying-pan in which it has been 
cooked." This is the cod, the true Gtidus, having 
the flavor of the Block Island cod, and of food for 
men or gods nothing more can be said than that. 
There seems to be enough of these along the north 
Pacific coast to supply the fishmongers of all 
nations. Sturgeon are of immense size, and so 
abundant that Isinglass made from them has long 
been an article of export. Herrings are in count- 
less numbers. Smelts— precisely the delicate fish 
of New York Bay— are taken by tons. Dog-fish in 
Incredible quantities are manufactured into oil for 
export to distant parts of the world. Rock-fish, 
deep sea perch and other valuable varieties are as 
abundant as those named, as well as crabs, 
shrimps, oysters, clams, etc. 

According to the census just taken, there are no 
less than 16,746 persons engaged in the fishing . 
business on the Pacific coast, most of them in the 
region treated In these pages. Of the total 11,555 
are fishermen and 5,190 are share or factory hands. 
There are engaged in the business 5.547 boats and 
53 vessels. The total value of the plant, consisting 
of boat-', vessels, apparatus, outfits and buildings. 
Is given at $2,748,383. The total products last year 
amounted In value to $9,548,277. On the Columbia 
River the salmon fishing and canning business has 
the best development. Nearly 7,000 fishermen and 
factory hands are employed, and the value of the 
product last year was nearly $3,000,000. A grand 
stimulus will be given this industry by the comple- 
tion of the Union Pacific's Oregon Short Line and 
the Northern Pacific, and vast shipments of this 
delicious and healthy food will find their way Into 
the Interior of our own country -constituting a 
luxury within the reach of all— Instead of being so 
largely taken 10,000 miles by ocean to foreign lands. 
Of game they have the buffalo, black, brown and 



^ 



20 



" Where Rolls tJie Orescou. 



grizzly bear, elk. moose, antelope, deer, mountain 
sheep, flsher, martin, wolf, mink, otter, goose, 
duck, prairie chicken, pheasant, grouse, etc., in 
great abundance. 

In truth the finest fishing and hunting in America 
is found in every nook and corner of this northwest, 
and he must be a novice indeed who cannot find 
ample return for efforts bestowed within a dozen 



miles of many of the leading cities. Butte City, 
Montana, on the Utah & Northern Branch of the 
Union Pacific, Helena, Virginia and Deer Lodge in 
the same territory, Boise City, Baker City and 
Walla AValla, further west, and all accessible via 
the Oregon Short Line, are among the be.st points 
for outfitting and rendezvous for the sportsman. 




The Course of Empire." 



■^™^HERE this region meets the sea ends the 
fll^ American " course of empire." Here, if 
not before, must our wandering'capital 
and industry forever make Its stand, yvesivard 
rolls ten thcmsandmiUscfvccuu. and its farther shore 
gives no worthy welcome. Therefore the deve]oi> 
ment of this field carries with it an interest most 
intense. How quickly the destiny I have sought to 
outline shall be reached depends upon that great- 
est of all clvlllzers, the railway. On the accom- 
panying map are shown only completed lines, 
and those now building. Every mile of line laid 
down will doubtless be constructed by the close 
of 1883. The Utah & Northern Branch of the 
Union Pacific has reached Butte City. Montana, 
giving a Pullman Palace car route to the Clarke's 
Fork country, and is pushing down the Deer 
Lodge valley where it will soon combine with the 
Northern Pacific for the development of all the 
country westwar 1 to the Columbia. The Oregon 
Short Line branch of the Union Pacific is pushing 
westward across southern Idaho, its mission being 
to develop the Lewis Fork or Snake country. About 
300 miles of this Hue Is graded; It will reach the 



Wood River and Boise country this year, and 
in 1883 connect at or near Baker City, Oregon, with 
the Oregon Railway and Navigatiau Co's. line, 
forming a through broad gauge road from the 
East to Walla Walla, Portland and Puget Sound, 
and a continental route 700 miles shorter to Asia 
than our present one. Necessarily branch lines 
will be constructed up m;iny fertile valleys to the 
rich mining regions at their heads and thus within 
two years at farthest, will the " Land where Rolls 
the Oregon " be marching with giant strides to- 
war-d a glorious future. 

This subject, of almost infinite Importance, has 
received but little attention. Its literature is so 
meager that we turn in despair from our best pub- 
lic and private libraries to that indefatigable 
source, the modern railway. The Union Pacific 
Company is making strenuous efforts to fill the 
want by furni>hing reliable and concise documents 
descriptive of each of the commonwealths herein 
outlined. They can be obtained free at any of the 
Company's agencies, or by addressing J. W. Morse, 
Esq.. General Passeng er Agent, at Omaha. Neb. 

DENVER TIMES PRINT. 



